


Poster-Store Beautiful

by helico_pter



Series: I shut my eyes and my mouth and my legs just gave out [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - No Ice Skating, Anal Sex, Angst, Ballet Dancer Yuri Plisetsky, Brotherly Love, DJ Otabek Altin, Getting Back Together, M/M, Otabek Altin is a Mess, Otabek's Inferiority Complex, Pining, Post-Break Up, Yuri's Abandonment Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 04:31:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 38,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21173480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helico_pter/pseuds/helico_pter
Summary: "Are you happy that I failed? That I still don't know? That I couldn't stay-" He clutches at his hair. "I fell in love, Mom. It hurt so much to know you'd tell me to leave him." It's too late to stop the horrid, painful cracking of his voice and being. "And it hurt to know that was all I could do, anyway, because I’m so fucking useless."Otabek is the expert on leaving, but he's slowly learning to stay.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was so difficult to write. I hope it hits at least some of the points.
> 
> If you want to skip over Otabek being a mess and scenes with mostly OCs, you can start from Chapter 4.
> 
> Oh, and I guess this is just in time for Otabek's birthday, too.

The first phase is this: sheer physical craving.

Otabek swerves and crashes through continental Europe on the back of a bike he can no longer control. He dreams of Yuri, even when he's awake, and at night he wakes sweaty and aching hard from delirious fantasies of being strangled by a pair of thighs. He doesn't know which part he enjoys the most, the sex, or the part where he dies.

The cannabis-fuelled time he spends in Amsterdam doesn't help. There's no escape from addiction. He wants Yuri with virulent urgency, which his hand or the random warm bodies he meets can't abate. For three months he's untethered from what he's left behind in London and what awaits him in Almaty. For three months he dreams of erotic asphyxiation, a devil too sublime, and struggles to keep himself and his bike from going to pieces from the abuse of riding too long and too far.

The pain from his cramped muscles and bruised heart ushers in the second phase: the sense of psychological distance.

It coincides with his return to Almaty at the end of August. He wants to message Yuri, call him, tell him that he's made it. He wants to talk to Yuri, hear his voice, have his opinions, his vehement confidence, and the comfort of his strength of spirit. This phase lasts much longer. The longing that grows colder and more unbearable as time passes.

Otabek has been away for four years. His brother had said he only had an empty room left, and Otabek had taken the words figuratively. But, as he finds out upon his return, they were meant literally. His parents have purchased a new house and the room he comes back to is truly empty.

Everything he'd left in London is gone. Everything he'd left in Almaty is also gone.

He has his phone, his laptop, some clothes, a touring bike he can't and doesn't want to ride. He has social media that has diminished to only a few people. He has a family, who are guarded in their welcome. He has a body that scarcely functions and a mind that's shattered into guilt and shame and regret and anger and longing. He's barely a person.

He has a bed and a pile of clothes on the floor, and a problem with muscle relaxants. But he should be used to pain by now.

"You need help, bro," Nurbek says after a week, stepping into the room. He kicks a boot aside and looks around the dismal space. It's still empty enough to echo.

Otabek is still in bed. He hasn't bothered using the linens, just lies on the bare mattress with the blanket and the uncased pillow. He agrees with his brother, but doesn't have the energy to show it. He has to squint against the light that streams uninterrupted through the windows.

"What time is it?" he croaks, placing his hand over his eyes.

"10am." The mattress dips as Nurbek sits on it, then shakes as he scoots up against the wall, making it obvious he's there to stay. "Match day tomorrow so today's rest. Got time for my big brother."

"I'm sorry," Otabek says. He's useless. He doesn't even know what he's apologising for. Maybe his continued existence.

"I'm not mom or dad," Nurbek says. He sounds pissed off. "I'm glad you came back, but this is bullshit."

"I'm just really tired," Otabek mumbles. They used to be so close. Now he can't remember how to hold a simple conversation with his brother.

"More bullshit," Nurbek states. His hesitation hangs heavily in the air. "What happened, Beka?"

Otabek is a mess. He both loves and loathes that name. The intimacy it signals. "I don't know," he says, voice cracking. _But I do know_. He moves his hand aside and blinks his eyes open, careful against the light. Nurbek's hair has grown. It's longer in the front than in the back. He's wearing a football jersey and running shorts. He's healthy and in good shape. Less than two years between them and all the difference in the world.

"Hey," Nurbek sits up, holding his jersey out from his body to make the logo visible, "told you I made it to the team, right?" Otabek nods and holds out his thumb. He remembers. Nurbek has been playing for FC Kairat for two years now, the top-ranked football club in the country.

Otabek's proud. As if he's ever had anything to do with Nurbek's success.

"Playing Taraz tomorrow. You should come watch," Nurbek offers offhandedly. "Mom usually comes, and dad when he can, but they can't make it tomorrow. Would be nice to have my big bro there."

"Might take a wheelchair to get me there," Otabek mutters. He sits up, breath shortening to gasps as the muscles in his back and left leg all recoil in pain. He's not even wearing any clothes, having run out of clean ones a long time ago. He looks up at Nurbek's worried and hurt face. The most familiar face in the world to him. Nurbek is the only person Otabek doesn't hate or envy. He's the only person Otabek had wanted to see, coming back. The only person he thinks who will have him.

"You look like complete shit," Nurbek says. "Lost like half your bodyweight or something."

Otabek nods. Eating hadn't been a priority. Or exercise. He doesn't resist when Nurbek reaches over and takes his hand, turning it over so the zipper on Otabek's forearm is visible. His stomach enters freefall, realising all of his tattoos are visible. He resists the urge to cover the tiger face, as if Nurbek could read everything he's done from it. As if the agony it radiates isn't visible everywhere else, too.

But Nurbek's looking down at the zipper. "Mom's gonna love this."

Otabek doesn't have the strength to ask his brother not to tell their parents. It shouldn't even matter, after everything. How much more could he disappoint them? There's nothing he does more than disappoint people. "Nura..."

"Don't worry, bro. Dad's in Singapore and mom's at the conservatory," Nurbek says and lets go. He pushes himself off the bed and disappears into the light of the unfurnished room. "I got you."

#

Otabek is 22 and ancient.

His brother arranges for him to go back to physical therapy, and Otabek cries with gratitude and the pain of having his body worked over. He tells himself it's just that, just physical pain, just the remnants of the disuse he's put himself through. He cries every time for weeks because it hurts so much. He should be used to pain, but he isn't.

"You don't have to drive me around," he tells Nurbek when he picks Otabek up after an appointment.

"I beg of you, bro, shut up," Nurbek says. His Kazakhstan flag blue Audi A5 sportback had been a 20th birthday present from their parents. It's sleek and expensive and comfortable. "Would you rather limp to a bus or a cab? Drive your bike?"

"No." Otabek hasn't touched his bike since he'd last gotten off it, at the end of his roadtrip. "I think I'm going to sell it," he says. _Concentrate on small, practical goals._

"What happened?" Nurbek asks, not for the first time, but maybe it's the low, smooth hum of the car's tyres against the street, or the bone-crunching exhaustion of his physical therapy that makes it so Otabek doesn't mind being asked this time. And here is the one person who deserves an explanation.

Otabek chooses to begin at the end. On the street in front of Linbury Theatre. "I broke up with Yuri."

Nurbek seems to be taking a purposefully circuitous route, edging towards the city limits. He speaks when Otabek remains quiet. "Gonna expand on that?"

"Yeah," Otabek says, brought up from the soundless empty. He rubs his left thigh. Strange that it should hurt _there_. "I went to a photo exhibit and I met this-" _Thi__s __beautiful picture, this dancer, this vivid, alive, incomprehensible person, this machine for lust and dreams __and music_. "I met Yuri there."

"Right." Nurbek takes his hands off the wheel and Otabek realises the car is stationary, parked in a gravel lot near the start of a hiking path leading up the mountainside. The clouds hang low, hiding the peaks, impaled on them.

"Yuri is- He was-" Otabek can't put him into words, only feelings, and he can't explain those, so he releases his seatbelt and takes out his phone to show his brother a picture of Yuri. A selfie from early May, taken while lying down in Otabek's bed, and with half of Otabek visible as well, his eye trained incredulously at the grinning Yuri. Nurbek takes a look and nods, reserving judgement for later. Much more gracious than Otabek.

"What'd you do?" Nurbek asks instead.

There's nothing Otabek can say that would erase his actions, even if he continues to torture himself over the things he can no longer change. So he says, "I hurt him," because it's the truth. He is the sordid, horrid thing that happened to Yuri.

"Why'd you do that?" Nurbek asks. Subtlety is a lost art between them.

_To be free. To set Yuri free. To make sure it wouldn't end later, worse._ "He wouldn't have believed me otherwise."

Nurbek clicks his tongue in a way too similar to their mother. "Always strung too high, Beka. To the point of breaking yourself."

Maybe that's why he'd fit together with Yuri, resonating at the same pitch. He still shakes his head, despite being broken right now.

Nurbek heaves a breath. "You don't have to hurt other people or yourself to make things happen."

Less than two years and all the difference in the world. "He would've been better off with literally anyone else in the world." _But anyone else_, says the jealous piece of shit inside him, _isn't you_.

"Dunno," Nurbek says, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, but not restarting the car. The heat inside is being leeched out, slowly, by the fact that the motor isn't running. "I mean, it sounds like you did something bad, but I know you, bro, you're not a bad _person._"

Otabek hunches forwards, elbows on his knees, covering his face with his hands. _Breathe_, he thinks, but his air is turning to liquid. "I couldn't keep him." He dry-heaves with the weight of his guilt and regret, knowing that Yuri would've let him. Yuri, who wanted more, would've tried until Otabek broke apart. The selfish lizard-brain tells him he's useless, a weakling for not consuming Yuri like everyone else.

Nurbek puts his hand on his shoulder, and draws him into an awkward hug over the centre console of the car. Otabek is grateful for that connection. His hands over his face get wet anyway, as if he hadn't cried enough already. "But I wanted to, so much."

Nurbek rests his chin on top of Otabek's head. It's not pleasant, but it makes it all the more real. Otabek has learned not to trust things that feel good. "I'm ruined so I would've ruined him, too," he sobs under his breath, trying to dam the words into his mouth with the heels of his hands.

The pressure of emotion is making him crack at the weak spots. He can't cover himself in enough zippers to hold it in. He's oozing dark matter and viscous home-sickness even when he's home, a dull, constant pain filling every joint.

"Bro," Nurbek says, squeezing his shoulder, digging his chin into the crown of Otabek's head. "Beka."

"I _miss _him," Otabek croaks, aching to just spill everything, even if it's meaningless to his brother. "I want to talk to him. I want to know if he visited Russia, or Japan, like he said he would. I want to know if he likes any of the roles he has this season. I want him to send me cat pictures and selfies." He breathes harshly, too fast, his insides spinning like a broken washing machine. "I want him to call me an asshole and yell at me, and p-pull my hair."

"Okay, what," Nurbek says with the tone of someone who hadn't expected to be on the receiving end of this much information, or the truth of just how much of a mess Otabek has become. The thought makes Otabek cold, and he tenses up, gritting his teeth and clenching his hands into fists. _Stop being weak_.

"Nevermind," he says, much softer, pulling away to hide his gasping breaths and hammering headache. His baby brother shouldn't have to carry him and his problems. There's already so much pain, it shouldn't touch Nurbek. He uses the hem of his undershirt to dry his face, sinking in his seat and turning away.

"Hey," Nurbek says, "that's not what I-"

"I'm tired," Otabek replies, curling up in himself. Communication is too difficult. Explaining Yuri is impossible. He's scattered across the landscape in a million little pieces.


	2. Chapter 2

He tries to help Nurbek with his online university classes, although his little brother doesn't need any help, but also, gracefully, accepts Otabek's flailing attempts. Nurbek studies sports nutrition for fun. Otabek is the one who needs a distraction. He's made sure to empty out his life of everything that means anything. Does music make a sound when he doesn't listen to it? Does it make a sound when he _does_ listen to it? He can't tell.

All this space just for regret.

And even after Otabek has been back for almost two months he has curtains and a desk, and linens on his bed, but the room still echoes. It makes the knock on his door louder than it is, because there's no buffer for the sound. There's no buffer between him and his father when he steps in, not waiting for Otabek to respond to the knock.

It's his house. It's his courtesy that gives Otabek a space, and living there comes with expectations that Otabek has not met. He's surprised he hasn't been disowned. Maybe this is it.

_It'd be a relief_, he thinks traitorously and sits up in his bed, shoving the string of black pearls from his hands under his pillow. Being in the room alone with his father rouses both dread and rebellion, and he lifts his chin and sets his eyes. It's his father who taught him to stare people down, after all.

Today he is 23 years old and waiting for his punishment.

"Son," Father says, surprising Otabek with this near-endearment. "I believe there are no strings left between us except blood ties."

_Is that a promise or a threat?_ Otabek stands up. It seems like that sort of a conversation. "Yes, father," he says, resorting to a slightly more formal address. He knows he has the beginnings of the same lines around his eyes as ring his father's deep-set pair.

(Nurbek had throw a bottle of lotion at his head a week earlier. "Start moisturising, bro! You're disgusting!")

"Son," Father says again, then amends it, slowly, painfully, "My son. You've been away for years."

Otabek nods. His father's face remains unreadable, impassive, and his dark gaze is the judge and jury Otabek has submitted to countless times.

"I can't speak for your mother," Father continues, eyes wandering across the bare space of Otabek's room, unable to settle, and telegraphing a surprising nervousness, "but during these years I've reached a conclusion."

Otabek nods, doesn't say any of the things that drip poison in his mouth. The spreadsheet of his sexual encounters. He stops himself from recoiling when his father's gaze returns to him, sombre and assessing, as if he knows what Otabek has become. A worse, even weaker version of himself. Gasping for breath in a sea of noise that should all _mean something_.

"None of what's happened is your fault," Father says, a sudden absolution. "But it _is_ your responsibility. Do you understand?"

Otabek shakes his head, trying to fathom this benevolence.

"Your choices, your actions, whatever it is that brought you back here in… this state." The ragged, hurting shell of a person who stands before his father. "I can't say I approve, but I've decided it's not my place. The only thing I want you to change is your attitude. Take responsibility, _be_ responsible."

"Dad," Otabek says, surprising both of them. "Dad, I- I never wanted to- I tried to-" The words are so sticky and unwieldy. This strange and unanticipated concession from his father makes Otabek want to explain, to ask for more, to be guided.

Father holds up his hand. "I don't need an explanation. But your mother and I do have a request. We'd like to hold a birthday party for you. Invite the family. You've broken a lot of hearts by taking yourself away from us. It's time to mend those."

_No strings, except blood ties_.

"Okay," Otabek says and bows his head, accepting both his father's words and the situation. Yes, he owes a debt to his family, and a responsibility, but shouldn't it be also more than that? _Birthday cakes and embarrassment_.

#

The house is large and the weather is mild enough for the south-facing balcony to be used as a space extension for the open living, dining and kitchen area. It's exactly what their mother has always wanted from a house. Enough space and enough open space to host their family gatherings. Otabek feels like a football being passed from player to player as he goes through the relations.

There are too many questions. _What do you do with that degree?_ and _Still not married?_ and _No__ children yet?_ The first one's easy, he just shrugs, the second one's annoying, he sighs and shakes his head, and the third one makes him speak.

"I'm gay," he says over and over again. Marriage and children, none of it promises him any happiness.

It isn't a surprise to anyone—after all, he'd come out in the most spectacular way possible, by causing a car crash and almost dying—but no one really wishes to talk about it. A few of his cousins are sympathetic, and nod, and say they understand, but it's left at that. Nurbek corners him on the balcony, phone in hand.

"Bro, do you remember," he starts and Otabek thinks of JJ. "Do you remember what we used to do on your birthdays?"

Otabek confirms with a nod. He shouldn't have stayed away for four years.

"You up for it?" Nurbek asks.

Otabek gives him a double thumbs-up and Nurbek grins, lifting his phone to his ear. "He said yes. We're coming. No one will notice," Nurbek adds as they leave. They never have.

Inside Nurbek's Audi, Otabek stretches his left leg out as far as it can go to relieve the discomfort. But when everything is uncomfortable, there's not much he can do. He isn't even wearing his own clothes. He's just fragments of a person, borrowing his little brother's skin and fortune, memories from the past and time from the future.

They stop to pick up a girl who Nurbek introduces as his girlfriend, Aliya. Otabek gives him a look, but refrains from commenting. He has no right to judge Nurbek's choices, and he has no right to be offended at things his brother hasn't shared with him.

"Wow," Aliya says from the back seat of the car. "You two look so alike!"

Otabek contains his wretched derision. They're nothing alike.

"Hey, Beka," Nurbek says. "It'd be cool if you kept me and Ali a secret from mom and dad."

He sees Aliya point both her thumbs at herself. "'Cause this girl ain't Muslim," she says. "So I guess they hate me?"

"Nah," Nurbek says easily. "Just not worth the hassle, you know?"

_That isn't how you talk about your girlfriend_, Otabek thinks and feels like the older brother for once. But he understands. Sharing doesn't seem to come easy to them. And Aliya doesn't seem bothered, instead she just laughs.

"Happy birthday, by the way," she says.

"Thanks," Otabek says, meeting her eyes through the mirror. Her mouth is painted cherry red, and it's definitely something their mother wouldn't approve of. Or being alone in a car with two boys, and not covering her hair. She reminds him of Yuri, but anyone unashamed and alive would do.

They leave the car on the side of a street, and walk up an unlit hill along an overgrown path. Slowly lights become visible between the almost bare trees, and a few raised hands and voices greet them at the bottom of an old luge track, lit by phones and glowsticks.

"Can't believe you still do this," Otabek mutters.

"Only on special occasions," Nurbek replies.

They've always shared many of their friends, and Otabek notes that many of the faces are still familiar that come up to them. He's surrounded and congratulated, and clapped on the shoulder several times. Rania, a girl from his class at the ballet academy, even hugs him. She and a few others stay at the bottom of the track while the rest of them start up an old wooden staircase.

The steps are slippery with damp and fallen leaves, and the sky is a road of broken up clouds, hiding the sunset. Otabek stays in the middle of the procession, uncertain of his step after so many years. At the top a familiar quickening goes through his limbs, breath starting to hitch as the inexpertly modified luges are brought out. There's no ice, so they have wheels, making them more like unwieldy skateboards.

There's chatter while the sleds are checked and while Otabek peers down the track. It still has a few working lights that someone has jury-rigged on. A lighter glows red for a moment, and then a joint is being passed around, part of the ritual.

"Who's going down?" someone asks and Otabek raises his hand.

"Not me," Nurbek says. "Sorry, Beka. Club orders not to break my legs."

Before, they'd done it together. Otabek had already broken his legs and Nurbek hadn't yet become a professional athlete. They'd never got hurt badly.

"I'll come with you," Aliya offers, already tying up her hair. The joint gets passed around a few more rounds until Otabek feels he's ready to die again. They get helmets and some body padding before getting onto the sled. Aliya wraps her arms around him from behind. She even smells like cherries. "I like you," she whispers.

"You don't even know me," he murmurs back.

She laughs and squeezes him. "I'm ready. Goodbye, Nuraym!"

Otabek lifts his legs into the sled and they're pushed into the descent.

It's such a stupid, risky, exhilarating thing to do. It'd been far less terrifying when Otabek had been younger and angrier and more immortal than he is now. The track is uneven, there's debris here and there and cracks in the concrete, and the sled is even harder to control than he remembers. But Aliya whoops in his ear and laughs and it's contagious under the circumstances of the stomach-curdling elation of speed and danger.

They tumble out at the end of the track, going too fast to try and break, landing into the old mattresses and other refuse that's been laid there just for this purpose. Lights still flash in Otabek's eyes as the people who'd stayed behind run up to them with their phones out, to make sure they're all right and to communicate that to the top of the hill. It also means the run is clear for the next one.

Aliya pulls Otabek up from the pile of foam rubber, when his legs refuse to carry, heart beating a melody like a gabber bassline. Slowly the hum of his blood becomes the wind in the trees and the victorious laughter and rapid conversation of people around them. They're led out of the way and helped out of the helmets and pads, and another joint appears along with Nurbek galloping down the stairs to meet them.

Music starts from someone's bluetooth speaker and Aliya gives Otabek a sticky, red kiss on his cheek. "Sure you're gay?" she asks with a mischievous narrowing of her eyes.

"Super gay," Otabek replies and coughs out smoke. Everything hurts incrementally less because he's just glad to be alive.

#

"Happy birthday, Bex!" JJ and Isabella say at the same time, holding their hands together in the shape of a heart.

"I don't deserve you," Otabek says. "Either of you."

"Yeah, well," JJ shrugs and grins, his trademark JJ-style fingers creeping up as Isabella rolls her eyes. They look so good. Happy. Otabek misses them. "We didn't get you a gift so we're even!" JJ declares.

"I didn't even call you on your birthday," Otabek points out. He's in his room, rolling the black pearls between his fingers.

"Or mine," Isabella adds.

"See?" Otabek sighs, falling back onto his pillow, covering his face with his arm. "I don't deserve this."

"So what? I got other people to congratulate me," JJ sniffs. "But I know you're lacking in that department."

Otabek keeps his luge-adventures to himself. "Oh, so this is pity?" he asks.

"Cheer up, big guy," Isabella says. "We love you. Deal with it."

Otabek tilts his face towards them again, beaming in synchronicity from thousands of kilometres away. It's easier to like them when he doesn't see them every day, easier to deal with JJ's uncalled-for advice and meddling.

"How's it going at the club?" he asks.

"Oh," JJ inhales. "Well, we're closed for renovations, which is good timing 'cause Bella's got an internship at a really fancy law firm. We're down our favourite DJ and Tino's still in town," he rattles off, rapid-fire. "Turning your flat into the break room. It's got the water connections already. I should've become an architect, Bex. I'm amazing at it."

Of course he is. Otabek nods and listens and doesn't ask about anything outside their life.

It's been a year since he met Yuri.


	3. Chapter 3

Otabek sells his motorbike. The last time he drives it is to take it to its new owner. Nurbek follows in his Audi. It's flashy, but still practical.

The touring bike is neither practical nor wanted. Otabek doesn't think he'll drive across Europe again. Even the short ride now, in the November cold, makes his body ache. He pretends it's just his body that aches.

"Are you gonna get a smaller one?" Nurbek asks, driving him back. "Or a car?"

Otabek doesn't trust himself, and he doesn't want to be a passenger to a driver he doesn't trust. "Where am I going to go? I don't need either."

November is the ugliest month.

#

December is sharp and cold this time. There are many sunny days, but the sun is like a frozen egg in the milky sky: no warmth at all. As though it wants to put distance between itself and the thing it's meant to be.

The inflamed longing has become mind-numbing remorse. His dreams of Yuri are fewer, his memories of the last six months in London have faded and become discoloured under the varnish of his mood. He remembers Yuri as something impossible, as the slip of pearls between his fingers. The increasingly indelicate uses he puts them to when there is a shred of privacy in an effort to gain something back.

Nothing is better, only more dull.

When he was little, he loved listening to his mother play her beloved string instruments. This is why the sound of the jetigen draws him to the music room, even when their relationship, like the sun, is cold with distance.

The music carries the scent of his mother's perfume. He stops in the doorway of the room, its windows towards the south like the balcony, overlooking the shrouded peaks of the mountains.

"Do you like the view?" his mother asks as though they're strangers, hands stilling the sound of the zither.

"It's nice," Otabek says when the silence stretches too long. _It's meaningless_.

"I picked this house because of the view," she says. "I thought you'd like it, too."

_It's not what I want_, Otabek thinks.

"Come in, my little bear," she says and beckons him. "Do you like the room?"

Otabek can barely see through the brightness. He shuffles into her space. "It's nice," he repeats and Mother clicks her tongue at his reticence.

"Let me play you what I'm working on," she says and the hum of the strings begins again.

_A zither? Seriously?_

She'd taught both him and Nurbek to play the instrument. Otabek had become quite good, and Nurbek had shredded on it like an electric guitar, refusing to be still for so long. Otabek sinks into an armchair to listen. She composes; he doesn't have the skill for it. He just echoes and recites and adapts. He doesn't create.

"Mom," Otabek says when the song is over. "I'm so tired. I sleep and I sleep and it doesn't help."

"Nuraym said you were depressed," she replies and very carefully places the zither down in its case on the table in front of her. She speaks quietly, not taking advantage of the acoustics of the room. Even the songs she composes are quiet and slow.

"Why does it-" Otabek chokes on the words and squeezes his eyes shut, against the light, against her expression. "Why don't you believe it until he says it?" he mutters. "I'm gay, too, did he tell you that? You never believed _me_ before."

She clicks her tongue again, the way she does, disappointed, but not expressing it.

"I can't even love someone without it feeling wrong," he says, a catch in his throat, folding his arms so he can digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. Then he's almost sobbing, but there are no tears, just pain. "_You'll grow out of it. Have you tried not being gay? Look at all these nice girls who want to date you_," he mocks. "_You're wasting yourself._"

"Didn't you leave us for years to prove otherwise?" Her voice, despite its softness, cuts through his harsh breaths.

"Yes," he whispers.

"And now you're even worse than before. It hardly seems like it was worth cutting us off for those years."

"I'm sorry it hurt your feelings," Otabek mutters.

"Not just my feelings," she says. "Everyone in the family was disappointed."

"I'm so tired, Mom." Otabek drops his hands and meets her gaze. "Can you just stop for a moment?"

She becomes smaller and older without changing. She's never liked to face difficult issues because she's not a confrontational person. No, she doesn't confront, she guilts and shames and blames and it's finally clear to Otabek. He likes to hide, too. Avoid failure by leaving.

"Do you think I wouldn't become straight if I could? Just to please you. I would." Otabek isn't proud to admit this. He isn't proud that his parents' opinion of him matters so much, or that a lifetime of trying to do what they want has left deep clawmarks of their shame.

"I've always done what you've asked of me," he continues, trying to keep his voice steady. She inhales as though to say something. "Except I didn't stay here to study music. I still studied music, like you wished I would. And that's fine, I like music. I like what I can do with it. But do you understand that I had to go and do it my way? Just so I could find out who I am outside of what you want for me?" Otabek swallows several times in a row, to keep his composure, and to get through the words he's held in for four months.

"Are you happy that I failed? That I still don't know? That I couldn't stay-" He clutches at his hair. "I fell in love, Mom. It hurt so much to know you'd tell me to leave him." It's too late to stop the horrid, painful cracking of his voice and being. "And it hurt to know that was all I could do, anyway, because I'm so fucking _useless_."

She remains still, mouth turned down, hands pressed together.

"Mom," Otabek begs. "Please tell me I'm worth _something_. That I've done the right thing because it _hurts_."

"You did the right thing in coming home," she says. "This is where you belong."

Otabek lurches up off the chair. "I need my own place," he gasps, eyes running because of the sunlight touching the bright peaks of the mountains. His heart feels like the sun, far away and cold. "I'm grateful you let me come back and stay here, but I need my own place."

She nods, finally, her eyes glimmering like the diamond studs in her ears. "All right, my little bear," she says. "We'll get you your own place."

"No, that's-" Otabek raises his hand. "I'll find one myself. Thanks," he says even though his breath still stutters on the verge of collapsing. _This can't be where I belong_.

Even a shitty flat which freezes over every winter is preferable to this loss of privacy and self-reliance. Affluence and comfort don't make up for it.

And just in time for Independence Day.

#

The new year brings Nurbek with gifts. First the gift of his insistence that Otabek start joining him on his daily exercise routine, which in the winter includes swimming in a nice heated pool owned by the football club. Since Otabek's physical therapist has cleared him for exercise, and encourages it, Otabek gets up every morning at 7am with his brother and goes swimming with him. Often it's followed by the gym.

It hurts, but like dull things, like bruised muscles remembering when to tense and when to relax. As a result, Otabek begins to hurt less, and a small space free of regret grows in his head.

The second gift is a job. Something to fill that space capable of functioning with a sense of purpose. It also hurts at first, having to deal with people, training social muscles. But Otabek joins the club's media team and produces music professionally for the first time in his life. The club wants new blood, a young audience, and music that draws from popular culture as well as Kazakh nationalism.

Otabek borrows his mother's traditional instruments and records samples and mixes music and goes to meetings, pretending the noise in his head is good for something. He gets his hair cut, shaved at the sides and the back, and blankly agrees it looks good when the hairdresser expects him to look in the mirror. Nurbek's hair is long enough to go in a little tail and Otabek finds himself smiling when he sees it. Their father can't understand why they insist on having such haircuts in the first place.

Otabek buys clothes for himself and dishes for his new flat. Small, but all his.

And there are times when he almost forgets, until he's mixed something he's proud of and wants to see Yuri dance to it. Or when he walks by a poster and art supply store and sees _Sleeping Endymion_ in the window. Then he remembers how Yuri is like every art piece, and he knows he has no sense of what art means, except that it must be Yuri caught in a firebird leap. Viktor had known all along.

The Kazakhstan Premier League season starts in February. There's a big party on behalf of the FC and Otabek plays a set. Nurbek breaks up with his girlfriend over mismatched expectations and Otabek still doesn't say anything about it, even though he disapproves. He stays in occasional contact with Aliya. She gives him a tiny succulent as a house-warming gift.

He abstains from Nauryz celebrations at the end of March despite the pressure from his family. He says he has to work. What he really does is sleep as much as he can, wearing his noise-cancelling headphones, because it's when he remembers Yuri's birthday. Yuri is 20.

Otabek is 23. His flat is empty. He sleeps on a mattress, curled up around a pillow, and he still misses Yuri. Time and constant worrying has worn some of the sharpest edges away, and what's left behind is a paperweight of aching memories on top of Otabek's chest, discoloured by the varnish of his mood.

He's used to being in pain.

Attending Nurbek's matches is a family outing. He's comforted that his parents support his baby brother like that, and he's proud to see Nurbek play. He even travels with the team a few times when they have away games. It's a different experience from home games, both more controlled and more free. The former because the team has to behave better when representing themselves outside of Almaty, and the latter because most families and spouses were left behind. Otabek is glad his little brother is part of something like that.

In spring, Otabek also fasts for Ramadan for the first time in years, and attends several prayers. He hopes it'll bring him closer to his family, but none of it means anything to him. He only feels hungry, not spiritually cleansed. He buys a bed and a desk, and tries cooking. Nurbek runs in the mornings, and Otabek rides a bike to keep up. His knee can barely take jogging. He still swims and he still goes to the gym.

He meets Qadiel in his physical therapist's waiting room. He's on crutches and Otabek holds the door open for him. He has a crooked smile and no arrogance, and they go out for coffee and talk about how their knees hurt.

June is a month of celebration.

JJ and Isabella skype him, holding up Isabella's honours degree. "It's just Bachelor of Laws," she says and JJ puts his finger over her lips.

"What do you mean _just_?" he says, trying to look cross and failing.

"Because I'm going for my Master's, too," she says and pushes him away.

"I'm happy for you," Otabek says and means it. He's envious of their happiness, but seeing it he realises he can also appreciate it. "Honours, too."

"Yeah, that's my baby," JJ says. "Oh, that's another thing."

"I'm pregnant!" Isabella exclaims even before JJ's finished his sentence. She looks ecstatic, bouncing a little on her seat.

"I was going to tell him!" JJ mock-argues, but then flashes his giant grin. "Pregnant JJ-style!"

She elbows him with fond exasperation and Otabek finds he can be happy about this, too. "Congratulations," he says softly. "Don't elaborate on what JJ-style means here."

"It's a secret technique passed on from me to me," JJ says anyway. He's grown out his undercut and looks almost respectable now. So much different from their first meeting when Otabek had thought the term _fuckboy_ had been invented to describe people like JJ. A while before he'd learned that JJ was Catholic and saving it for marriage.

"The baby is due late December or early January," Isabella continues. Either pregnant women really do glow or it's the happiness that creates the shine in her eyes and the peachy blush on her cheeks. "Bex, do you think you could come for the baptism? I know it's a little bit early to ask, but..."

"Not taking no for an answer," JJ states. "I'm going to see you in January, mon dude."

The declaration is enough of a distraction from the unholy combination of languages that has created _mon dude_ and Otabek can only nod, surprised they'd want him there.

"Hey, Bex, you look good," Isabella adds, smiling gently. "It's nice."

"But not too nice, right?" JJ adds, eyeing her, but he's not very good at pretending to be jealous.

"I met someone," Otabek says, wanting to give them some reason to think he's doing better. And he is, he functions. "And I thought I'd give JJ-style a try."

JJ lights up even more, if possible. "Finally. What do you mean?"

"I thought I'd date him before sleeping with him."

"Oh yeah, classic," JJ agrees, nodding. His arm as crept around his wife's shoulders and they lean their heads together to give Otabek a smile that stretches between them.

"I'm glad you're my friends," Otabek says. Their attention isn't so intrusive any longer, it's supportive. "And I kind of wish you were my parents. Your kid's so lucky."

"Oh, please start calling Jack daddy," Isabella laughs. "Please, I'd love that."

"Okay, Bex, we're gonna talk about your visit later. Right now I need to have a word with my wife about friendship between men and how dad is okay, but daddy is not." Isabella laughs even harder, collapsing sideways out of the picture.

"Okay, daddy," Otabek says and hangs up to JJ's indignant face and the sound of Isabella crying with laughter. He may not deserve them, but he is happy he has them. Happy that, somehow, he hasn't hurt them so much as to drive them away. Happy that he has the chance to be a better friend to them. Be responsible for finding whatever it is that he needs.

Mid-June marks Nurbek's 22nd birthday, and with his blessing, Otabek invites Qadiel to the party. His father refuses to acknowledge Qadiel and his mother only says _did you have to do this today_, but neither make a scene because all of the family is there. Qadiel insists he doesn't mind, but goes home before the afterparty, where Nurbek gets to meet his actual friends and Otabek gets to flex his long-ignored DJ skills. There's enjoyment in that.

Soon afterwards he sleeps with Qadiel. He doesn't know what else to do. He's nice-looking, with a round face and a limp that makes Otabek feel protective. He plays with Otabek's hair but doesn't grab it, and Otabek tries to remember how to want someone. He can manufacture desire, but not connection. Qadiel wants to cuddle and he asks about the tattoos, but Otabek doesn't feel like explaining them or himself. He isn't enough and they break up.

Otabek considers this failure through playing with the pearls which hasn't touched for months and looking at his aging pictures of Yuri. He misses Yuri's irreverent impetuousness and the ease that developed. He'd never had to manufacture anything with Yuri, and now it makes him afraid that he'll never stop comparing because nobody else is like that, like poster-store art.

In July Nurbek travels even more, outside of Kazakhstan, because Kairat has qualified for the Europa League again. While he is away, Otabek undertakes the Hajj with his parents. It's his first time making the pilgrimage to Mecca and he hopes it'll make his mother and father happy. It's crowded, hot, and far from peaceful. His father asks him if he's going to start taking his observations and obligations seriously.

Otabek is quite sure that he can keep trying until the day he dies and his parents will never be happy with him. In the end, he's already disappointed them so badly nothing he does will make a difference one way or the other.

Yuri's voice is almost gone from his head, as are the memories of his presence. They're pictures in a slide-show. He enters the third phase: holding on to the abstract idea of someone you used to know.

Otabek isn't happy, but he accepts it. There's a balance. The pain has become faded. A scar which he covers up with a zipper.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've skipped the first three chapters, this takes place roughly a year and a half later of Otabek leaving London.

In December Otabek is 24 and waiting for spring.

The tiger sits on his chest, now surrounded by concentric hexagons that evolve into complex geometric patterns over his shoulder and arm like ripples in water. It finally feels like an accurate representation of Yuri's effect on his life. It's a part of him.

"Bex, I have a daughter." JJ calls him on the day. "Nine pounds and twenty inches. I have no idea what that means, but I have a _d__aughter_ and she's perfect." JJ is utterly wrecked, but it's like everything wrong in the world has been erased by the birth of his child. Otabek wishes he'll be able to be that happy one day.

At least now he believes he might one day get there.

"The baptism is the 26th of January. My family's coming over, everyone is coming here. Bex, Otabek Altin, I want you to be my daughter's godfather." JJ is drunk on lack of sleep, and he can't stop grinning.

Otabek's throat tightens and he has to blink away the sudden betrayal of tears. "Can I be a Catholic child's godfather?" he asks.

"Don't know, don't care. You're it," JJ says. "If the church can't handle it, we do it JJ-style." He laughs. "It's the last weekend of January. Come here. I've created the most perfect human being on Earth, Bex. I want you to see her."

Tears spill over, but they're from JJ's eyes, not Otabek's. "I'm so happy it hurts," JJ gasps and grasps at his chest.

"I'm happy for you," Otabek says and he means it. It's nice to be able to be happy for someone else and not just blindly envious of their perceived luck. "Can I bring my brother?"

JJ, drunk on his new family, spreads his arms. "Any brother of yours is a brother of mine!"

He only realises after JJ is gone that it means returning to London.

#

In January, after the near-Christmas birth of JJ and Isabella's daughter, Otabek takes part in a happy, multicultural and multireligious christening-baptism of the child. Isabella's Protestant and slightly Buddhist Chinese-British family, JJ's Catholic French Canadian family, and Otabek and Nurbek as the lone outliers of Turkic descent and Sunni Islam.

20 months after leaving London, and 2 years after meeting Yuri, Otabek is back to see JJ and Isabella's perfect child. His brother is ostensibly there only because Otabek had agreed they would travel to the promised land of Liverpool to see the home stadium of Nurbek's favourite team since childhood.

"Big Bex and Baby Bex!" Isabella effectively titles them when they meet. And JJ's hug of welcome is so enthusiastic Otabek feels bruised. Nurbek's face of _what is happening_ amuses him so much he laughs, even if it's just a hoarse chuckle.

"Is this the same introvert I adopted?" JJ questions and hugs him again, always excited to be excited with others.

"You didn't a- We were roommates," Otabek says.

"And I adopted you as mine," JJ continues.

_You're like a wounded animal. Potya's a rescue, too._

Otabek lags behind, swallowing against the tide. There's no affront accompanying the memory, but rather wonder at how both JJ and Yuri had recognised his issues so easily. He watches JJ sling a conspiratorial arm over Nurbek's shoulder and sees Isabella pick up the baby from the arms of her mother, and he thinks, _I'm in London._

There's a fine line between quiescence and chaos. He's seen Yuri dance, he knows it. And he finds himself straddling that line through the name-giving rituals.

He gets to hold the baby, and marvel at her tiny perfection with JJ hovering as she's christened. For the baptism Isabella's cousin holds her because as a theoretical Muslim, Otabek can't take part in the rituals of other religions. But afterwards JJ hands her over to him again, and the trust implicit in that gesture makes Otabek tear up, too. Nurbek grins and gives him a thumbs-up from the audience.

"First there's a flower, then a fruit," JJ tells him when the families have gathered at the club, closed for this special occasion. He looks towards his radiant wife and newborn child.

Otabek nods although he doesn't understand.

"It means," JJ presses on, knowing he doesn't understand, "that some things have to happen first for other things to happen later."

"Does it?" Otabek mutters.

"It does now," JJ assures him. "They've named her Lǜ Méi. It means Green Plum."

This Otabek understands. "After Plum Blossom?"  It makes sense. "And why Victoire?"

"Because I always win!" JJ laughs as if it's a ridiculous question and claps him on the shoulder.

"Hmm, it's as if he's done all the work, isn't it?" Isabella ducks under JJ's arm and presses against him. "The way he brags."

"What's new?" Otabek mutters. Victoire is calm as the eye of the storm around her. Perhaps the cacophony of three different languages being spoken at the same time around her doesn't bother her, at all. Otabek adds a little Kazakh to the mix by whispering her a blessing.

When Isabella takes the baby on further rounds through the relatives, JJ takes Otabek aside. "What do you think?" JJ's expansive gesturing could include anything and everything so Otabek follows it and considers the renovated interior of the club.

"It's good," he says. Strange place for a post-baptism party, but it's good. And it's weird to be back.

"You're so underwhelming," JJ complains, but nothing is able to take off the grin. "I did amazing with this place. I should've become an interior decorator."

Otabek nods. It looks new and classy and not like a place where he could ever play again. Too smooth and shiny, with the bones of something he recognises. He trains his eyes onto the new light fixtures and speakers in the club but doesn't see it for the past he's lived there.

"Tempted to come back?" JJ asks, beaming with pride. Both at creating a new human being and the renovation of the club he'd overseen and successfully completed over a year ago.

"Not in the slightest," Otabek replies truthfully. He grasps JJ's shoulder and squeezes it. "But thanks." The offer means a lot. Having friends, it turns out, means a lot. And whatever else Otabek might be, or has been, he doesn't want to be ungrateful or disloyal towards someone like JJ.

"How's it feel being a godfather?" JJ draws them both a pint from the new taps on the new bar, while the rest of the two families mingle around food and the baby.

"Less stressful than being a father," Otabek says, accepting the pint. He hasn't drunk much in the way of alcohol since reaching Almaty year and a half ago.

"Aha! I'm not stressed at all!" JJ exclaims. "I haven't slept for two weeks, but I'm not stressed. It's gonna be amazing." He does sport the telltale signs of exhaustion, the dark rings under his eyes, the sallow hue of his skin, the manic cheer. Otabek pulls the pint away from him, but JJ hardly notices.

"Yeah, children are a blessing," Otabek says carefully, sipping at his beer.

"So you're gonna have some of your own?" JJ leans his elbows on the bar and keeps his head up with his hands, following the trajectory his wife and newborn are taking on the floor between all the people. Meeting JJ's family has been unreal.

Otabek shrugs and sighs, knowing JJ can't see it. He'd always thought he'd have children because it's sort of expected. _But._ "Probably not," he admits.

"Not talked about it with your new boyfriend?" JJ asks. Otabek knows not to grow impatient at the eternal questions. It's familiar and almost familial at this point. But only slightly less annoying as when it's done by his mother.

"No, and not together anymore."

JJ reaches a boneless arm to wrap around Otabek's shoulders, using him as a crutch to keep standing. "Bex, my amie, I'm proud of you for trying."

_There's nothing to be proud of_. "Thanks, daddy," he deflects. JJ is so tired he starts laughing.

"I- I need a nap," JJ hiccups. "Bex, I'm _dying_."

"Can I go see upstairs?" Otabek ignores his plea. JJ drops his keys into Otabek's hand without much change in the level of his hysterics, and then sinks down behind the bar. The beer taps are new, not the ones Otabek had spent so much time keeping alive. It's a relief.

He takes Nurbek—who has made friends with JJ's younger siblings and Isabella's cousins—along and climbs the stairs at the back to access the flat. It doesn't even smell the same when he opens the door.

"This is it?" Nurbek asks, peering in over Otabek's shoulder. "This is where you lived for four years?"

"More or less," Otabek mutters, walking in. It's been renovated, too, into a break room. Everything he'd left there is gone, or so he thinks until he spots the keyboard, still on its stand, just moved behind a new sofa. These changes are also a relief, or so Otabek chooses to interpret the emptiness in his head.

"It was worse when I was here," he remarks, playing with the new blinds on the window. _Worse. Better. What's the difference? _"I think the radiator actually works now."

Nurbek isn't impressed and stands in the middle of the room with his arms crossed. Otabek suspects his stance is more about Otabek's behaviour than disapproving of the place itself. Maybe bringing him was a bad decision. Maybe coming up here was a bad decision. Maybe Otabek is about to make another bad decision.

"I'm going to go see Yuri."

"It's a bit of a dick move," Nurbek says, unsurprised. "Showing up unannounced."

It isn't the intention that Nurbek judges, but the execution of it. Otabek is grateful for that. "I know," he says. "But he already knows I'm an asshole."

"You're not, but whatever," Nurbek mutters. "Your friends are cool." He gives Otabek a suspicious look.

"Yep." At least Otabek can smile at that. This must be relief, too. He's made his decision.

"Way too cool for you," Nurbek continues, but without malice.

"I thought I was a cool brother." Otabek takes one last look at what had been his home for a long time, then puts his arm around his brother and walks him out. Leaving feels much better this time.

"You _were_," Nurbek agrees. He holds onto the joke for the duration of the short stairs. "Okay, you still are."

Otabek closes the door after the last look up the stairs. The memories are just shadows now, and he's glad the place isn't the same. He doesn't want the present to be the same as the past.

"That means a lot, Nura," he says. "Any last minute advice for someone about to be monumentally stupid?"

"No," Nurbek says. "I've never gone after someone who didn't want me."

"Yeah, but I think." Otabek takes a deep breath, looking around the small courtyard where his bike used to live. "I think Yuri did want me. I didn't believe it at the time, I'm not sure I believe it now, but… I think he did. So it's all my mistake."

"Are you gonna go now?"

Otabek nods, letting them back into the club. "You'll be okay?" Because he won't go if his brother says one word against.

"Yeah."

"You have money and the key for the hotel room?" Otabek prompts.

"Bro. I'm 22. It's not my first time travelling," Nurbek snorts.

"I know," Otabek says and gives him JJ's keys. "Give these to JJ. He's probably sleeping behind the bar. I'll see you at the hotel later."

Nurbek steps forwards and hugs him. "I know this means a lot to you. Good luck."

Otabek hugs him tight before leaving. With his baby brother, JJ, Isabella, and their daughter he has all the family he could want.

But he knows the goodwill of the universe has run out. There isn't enough purely hypothetical karma in the world to give him another coincidental meeting with Yuri. His just as hypothetical religion categorically denies the existence of things like karma and fate, so whatever he wants, he has to manufacture himself. And, most importantly, _Yuri deserves more than a coincidence. Don't waste his time._


	5. Chapter 5

Otabek stands on the street for the 29th minute. On the 30th, he'll force himself to move and go ring the bell of the familiar Chiswick area house.

The lights are on so he knows someone is home. He should be freezing after having stood still for so long, but his mind has tipped onto the side of chaos and there's no space for processing anything external. He _knows_ it's cold, but he doesn't feel it. He knows this is going to hurt, but he looks forwards to it.

It's been 30 minutes. He walks up the driveway and rings the bell. The bell sounding is marked by a single bark from behind the door before it opens, creating a blazing rectangle in the dark. Otabek takes a step back.

"Ah, Otabek," Viktor says with absolutely no emotion in his voice. A dog stands by him, tail wagging.

"Hello," Otabek replies. "Is Y-"

"Walk with me," Viktor interrupts him. He kicks off his slippers and slides into a pair of shoes, effectively blocking the doorway. He's wearing a thick cardigan and doesn't bother with a coat. He does put a leash on the dog and takes him along.

The door is closed and Otabek steps back again, tries to get out of the way, but Viktor purposefully collides with him and grabs his arm. Otabek had discounted the hatred Yuri's zealous parental units would feel for him. He'd seen how protective they were and he'd still discounted it.

"I'm surprised to see you," Viktor says, dragging Otabek down the suburban road. There's some snow on the ground and the dog bounds happily ahead of them. "I suppose I gave you too much credit, thinking you'd never be as stupid as to show your face again."

"I just-" Otabek starts, but Viktor holds up his hand.

"I'm speaking," he says, forcing Otabek to march along. Otabek throws a few glances over his shoulder at the house that they're leaving behind. "Because honestly, none of us wanted to see you again. So it's very, _very_ brave of you."

"I just want to explain."

"Oh dear. Oh no." Viktor laughs and Otabek has never heard such an unkind sound in his life. Viktor had often been speculative and even judgemental, but not outright_ hostile_. "Keep up, Otabek." Viktor grabs him by the elbow of his coat. "There's nothing to explain. You've done enough. Here." Viktor shoves him forwards, surprisingly strong.

They're at the bus stop.

"Please, I want to-" Otabek says, but Viktor holds up his hand again.

"_No_," Viktor says, nailing him on the spot with eyes colder than ice. "I should allow this and let you hurt him _more_? I think not." Viktor turns on his heel to go. "Don't come back, Otabek. Yuuri would be upset if he saw you."

"Viktor." Otabek starts after him.

Viktor turns on his heel and inflicts the advantage of his height on Otabek, which obliges Otabek to crane his neck to see him. "_You drove him away_," Viktor says, with so much held-back fury that the air around them seems to ionise. "It's _your fault _he left us. There's _nothing_ you can explain." He doesn't lay a hand on Otabek, but it still feels like he's being used as a punching bag, as if there's not enough oxygen.

"He-" Otabek says feebly. Almost two years later, he is too late.

"He no longer lives here," Viktor fills in the words, each of them savage. "And I don't care what it is that you think you need to do or say, you made sure there's no one here to tell. _Don't come back_."

This time Otabek doesn't call after Viktor as he leaves, but sinks onto the bus stop bench and stares, unseeing, across the road. The cold overtakes him very fast, and he begins violently shivering, gasping for breath. He knows what this means and curls up, dragging his fingers through his hair, against his scalp, to distract himself from the fear and guilt.

He'd been so sure at the club that this was a good idea. He'd only seen the good in the things that were left, only the idea that because he was trying to make it right, it'd be easy. He doesn't think Viktor is lying. He didn't think he'd hurt more people than himself and maybe Yuri.

The goodwill of the universe _really_ has run out, then.

#

The next doorbell he rings, the next morning, is JJ and Isabella's. When JJ opens the door with a little hand-wavy bundle in his arms, Otabek cringes. He'd already forgotten.

"Did I wake her?" he asks, immediately contrite.

"No. What's up?" JJ gestures him in. "I know that look, Bex. Boy trouble?"

JJ knows him too well at this point. Otabek tries to look normal, whatever is normal, as he takes off his coat. "I need your help."

"Boy trouble," JJ confirms to his daughter with a smug nod.

Otabek sinks onto a familiar seat by the kitchen island and puts his face in his hands, which makes JJ snort and then croon at the baby. "Okay," Otabek says, submitting himself to judgement. "I need to find Yuri."

There's a pause in all movement and sound, and Otabek doesn't dare look up. "Gotcha," JJ says then. "How can I help?"

"They've blocked me on everything. Can I use your accounts?" Otabek drops his hands and looks at the carefully non-judgemental look JJ is wearing. It's ill-fitting.

"Well," JJ says and holds out Victoire for Otabek to take. "He's blocked me, too, but yeah." As Otabek cradles the baby in the crook of his arm, JJ fetches his laptop and sits next to Otabek with it. "Could always ask Leo. He went back to the States, but I think he's still friends with everyone."

Otabek nods, and rocks Victoire. She stares up at him and grasps onto his finger when he offers it to her. He's held plenty of babies thanks to an ever-expanding amount of cousins in Almaty. It had seemed, at one time, that a new baby sprouted every six months for a good few years of his life. And all of them were celebrated as though it was the last drop of water in the middle of a drought.

"Wouldn't hurt you to post a little more, too, you know," JJ says while scrolling.

"There's nothing to post," Otabek counters. "Not like when I was working as a bike mechanic."

"Nobody cares about motorbikes like you do," JJ sighs, a little annoyed.

"Leo did," Otabek mutters.

"Yeah, well, Leo is a saint. I'm actually tweeting the Pope right now to confirm his canonisation." JJ mock-types by slamming his hands, limp-wristed, on the keyboard. "How about actual updates on what you're doing and how your life is going?" he says. "Especially now that you have a godchild. I expect you to be a good role model for our daughter."

"Our?" Otabek fights very hard to keep from smiling at that.

"Mine and Bella's," JJ huffs and cuffs him, but gently because of the baby. "I'm glad you brought your brother."

"Yeah," Otabek agrees. "He's like a better version of me, right?"

JJ shakes his head but says nothing about it. "You sure you want to find the Princess?" he asks instead. "It didn't end so well last time."

Otabek looks down at Victoire again, the pink face and eyes that barely focus on anything. "Stop worrying about me," he says, but softly. JJ's got the big brother act together so much better than he does. "Not everybody wins every time like you."

"I don't want to help you hurt yourself more," JJ voices his concern. Otabek is sorry he's put that burden on JJ, too. He's got enough on his plate with a newborn and his in-laws. Otabek should help, not make it worse.

"Look," Otabek says and faces his friend. "I know it's selfish."

"But?"

"No buts. I'm selfish." Otabek shrugs. Victoire coos and drools and waves her hands, and is generally adorable, and a very good distraction. "I want to see him again."

"What kind of a good Muslim boy disobeys his father?" JJ sighs.

Otabek gasps with sudden grudging laughter, which makes Victoire fuss. "Okay, daddy, what kind of a good Catholic boy marries a _Protestant_?" he counters.

JJ gives him a look. "Listen, you traitor. I'm not a _g__ood_ Catholic boy. I'm a _great_ one. No, I'm amazing- No, I'm the _best_ Catholic boy and I know what I'm doing!" He makes grabby hands towards his daughter. "Gimme. Do your own digging." He nudges the laptop to Otabek and they perform an exchange of goods.

Otabek idles with his fingers on the keyboard, watching JJ with the baby. He's borrowed so much from his brother, and now hopes he can borrow JJ's win streak. There's still envy at the bottom of his happiness for others, but it no longer stings so much.

And Qadiel had taught him that someone with identical scars doesn't necessarily make a match, either.

He nods when JJ voices his intention to put his daughter down for a nap, and continues scrolling through JJ's social media, not sure what he's looking for. He'd had the whole night to think about whether to heed Viktor's directive or not. But now, on top of being remorseful, he's also worried. How could he have caused a rift between Yuri and Viktor? He'd thought, given Yuri's well-established life and chosen family situation, that he'd be fine, eventually, with their support.

JJ comes back and starts fixing some sort of a snack. He still looks like he hasn't slept for weeks. Otabek gives up on Viktor's Insta which is just filled with pictures of the dog and Yuuri and lies across the kitchen island, his preferred brooding spot for years.

"If you were gay," he starts, not particularly sure where he's going with it. Just reassurance, maybe.

"Yeah," JJ says and slides a steaming cup of coffee across the counter at him. "Maybe Vic would actually be _our_ baby, is that what you mean?"

Otabek hoards the cup between his hands and sticks his face into the steam. He nods. "Is it wrong to think that might be nice?"

"No, because it _is _nice," JJ confirms. "But I'm not sure you're ready for fatherhood, Bex. You're still doggypaddling in the shallow end of the relationship pool."

"Thanks, I get your point," Otabek says. JJ and Isabella seem to be handling the baby with utter grace. Even their flat has hardly changed. A few baby bottles are on a drying rack. There's three empty coffee packs next to the baby bottles. Maybe their utter grace is a caffeine-induced dream. "I just don't want to be sad anymore."

"Says the man spiralling in my kitchen." JJ joins him again at the counter, with a massive cup of black coffee and a sandwich. "Bex, are you_ sure_ finding Yuri will make you _less sad_?"

"Last I was here you were saying the opposite," Otabek remarks, but without bite. He sips at the very strong coffee and feels fortified enough to pull the laptop back and keep looking.

Half a year back on Phichit's Instagram he finally finds Yuri in a photo of him turning away from a hug with Yuuri. Yuri's face is hidden, but the hoodie and the studded lapels of his jacket, and his pale-bright hair are so familiar that Otabek stops to stare for a long time. Eventually he rummages through the comments and finds that Yuri has gone back to Moscow, to join the Bolshoi.

_I found you_.

He turns to JJ, but finds him snoozing against his arms, slumped across the island and the remnants of the sandwich still on his lips. So instead of venting his excitement, Otabek keeps it inside and keeps scrolling through Phichit's posts, hoping for a glimpse of post-breakup Yuri.

And glimpses are all he gets. Yuri caught in the back of some pictures, always scowling, which is reassuring in a way. He always scowled anyway, as though it was his neutral expression. And just with these few glimpses, Otabek goes right back to where he started: the craving. Only somewhat tempered by time.

"You find what you need?" JJ mumbles, sitting up to yawn. "You have that look again."

"I did," Otabek confirms. "He's in Moscow." He runs his hand through his hair, a nervous gesture to go with the speed at which his heart begins to gallop. In retrospect he'd been positively zen when ringing Viktor's doorbell when compared to this. "I guess I'm going there."

JJ is quiet, which makes Otabek look at him, only to find him almost asleep again. "You sure, Bex?" he prompts again, eyes falling shut.

Otabek gets up. He has to pace a bit, to discharge some of the build-up of energy that comes out of nowhere. "I'm going."

"Right now?"

Otabek deflates, stopping mid-pace. "No." He's promised to stay and catch up for a few days, as well as sightsee with his brother, and then take the trip to Liverpool.

"Good," JJ sighs, placing his head on his arms. "I need sleep. Look after your godchild."

"No pressure," Otabek mutters. He hauls JJ off the kitchen island and onto the sofa, and tucks him in. Then gives Nurbek a ring to invite him over as reinforcements. Both to keep himself off the laptop and falling into the rabbit hole of social media, and from spiralling into a panic about changing nappies.

#

Otabek and his brother stay for the celebration of Victoire's 30th day, important to the Chinese and Buddhist contingent of the family. The rituals are unfamiliar, but the emphasis on family is not. JJ, being from the Western ideal of nuclear family, does his best to understand the filial piety that's expected of him, and for once Otabek feels he has the upper hand on him.

They leave amidst the celebrations and take an expensive train trip to Liverpool. The Anfield Stadium tour brings out Otabek's excited baby brother and he enjoys it just for that. He's happy to play the photographer for Nurbek when he gets to touch the _This is Anfield_ -sign, and admire the view at the top of the Main Stand.

At the Shankly Gates, Nurbek pulls Otabek into a selfie.

"Why?" Otabek asks because it's not something he enjoys.

"Because," Nurbek says and points at the gates. Above them, in the wrought iron spandrel of the gate, decorated with flourishes and the coat of arms of the football club, float the words _You'll Never Walk Alone_.

Otabek's throat constricts and his eyes get suspiciously prickly. "Thanks," he says. "I'm glad we came here."

"Didn't you ever want to visit the best ballet theatre or whatever?" Nurbek asks. They aren't the only visitors to the gate or the memorial set up next to it.

"Is this the best stadium?" Otabek dodges the question.

"Liverpool's a pretty good club," Nurbek says. "And I want to play for them. So what's the place where you wanted to dance?"

"I never got that far," Otabek says. It's a dream he's relinquished a long time ago, and only brings a memory of the aching feet and muscles that had been stretched to their limits every day. He'd wanted to be a good dancer, of course, but seeing Yuri had told him he would never have been that good, even without the car accident. He shakes his head, more to dispel the train of thought than anything. "You want to walk around the whole stadium?"

"Yeah." Nurbek breaks out into a smile. His hair's collected into a silly little tuft on the top of his head, bouncing there when he moves. For a moment Otabek sees the five-year-old version of him, all big eyes and endless energy, chasing after a football.


	6. Chapter 6

Otabek is walking on air with broken feet. He lands in Moscow a week after Liverpool.

He doesn't know where Yuri lives. He knows only that Yuri owns his grandfather's old place somewhere in the city, and that Yuri has joined the Bolshoi Ballet. He doesn't want to ambush Yuri again, but he doesn't have a vast array of options to choose from either. _Subtlety_ left his vocabulary a long time ago. Maybe that's why he fell in so easily with Yuri; Yuri is blunt force and he's blunt force trauma.

Otabek prioritises getting to the Bolshoi Theatre over finding himself a place to stay, but he's more worried about being able to purchase a ticket to whatever the ballet is performing that night than being able to find a hotel room in Moscow in January. Ticket acquired, he decides on finding sustenance next, but is stopped in the lobby because he spots Yuri, larger than life.

It's a poster, hanging from the ceiling like a tapestry, Yuri caught in the middle of a 540 rivoltade. The quality is blurry because it's been blown up so big, but Otabek would recognise Yuri anywhere. He stops to stare, consuming the sight, the dynamism caught in a still picture. The irony of ogling a photograph of Yuri again is not lost on Otabek.

"There you are," he murmurs to the poster. "You look good." It's like practise, except when he sees the real thing he knows he'll be speechless.

Otabek pulls himself away from the poster and outside into the cold. He hadn't packed for subzero temperatures, or for a stay longer than a week, but he knows he won't stay long in Moscow. Probably not even a week. He wishes he could believe otherwise, but he'll have no reason to stay once Yuri sees him and burns him alive.

It'd be lying to pretend he didn't want to be burned alive.

"I never understood why you want to be punished so much," Nurbek tells him on the phone. Otabek's made the promise to involve Nurbek more in his life, which in his case means making Nurbek an accomplice to all his bad decisions.

Otabek can make an educated guess. "I feel like I deserve it."

"Maybe sometimes," Nurbek agrees. "But not all the time."

"This time definitely," Otabek finishes. A punishment would ease the guilt.

"At least stop doing it to yourself," Nurbek mutters. "Just let me know when you're getting back so I can pick you up."

Otabek silences his phone and puts it away after the call. It's nice to know someone has his back. He's under no illusion that this won't destroy him. But he needs this, selfishly.

In the theatre, when the lights go down, Otabek rocks in his seat so nervously that the woman next to him calls him a junkie under her disgusted breath. It probably doesn't help his case that he hasn't showered for a day, and has alternatively sweated and frozen in his clothes.

There are two one-act performances, the first of which goes by in a blur because Yuri doesn't appear until the second. It makes sense, then, that Yuri dances back into Otabek's life in Stravinsky's _Petrushka_. A puppet instead of a firebird.

"What is _wron__g_ with you?" the woman next to him demands mid-way through the ballet, and Otabek can only shrug in apology and then make a quick exit while the corps de ballet take their bows on stage and the woman is preoccupied with applause.

The temperature hasn't dropped significantly in the time Otabek sat in the audience, but he shivers violently while waiting outside the theatre. Sitting still has made everything feel worse. His leg aches, but only minimally. He's been good about his physical therapy.

He bounces on the spot, cinching his backpack tighter to keep it from jostling, and almost loses his footing in a frozen pile of old snow when he sees Yuri walk out, looking at his phone. And he sees the exact moment Yuri recognises him. Yuri stops and the shape of his mouth says _fuck_. Otabek raises his hand carefully in a gesture of greeting, to mark that he, too, has recognised Yuri. That this, most definitely, is not a coincidence.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Yuri is the first one to bridge the gap, if only by raising his voice. They stand a good three metres apart on the pavement, with other people passing by on the icy street. Yuri wears an ushanka against the early February cold.

"Hello," Otabek says, and feels immediately stupid.

"Oh my god," Yuri says, still loud, still far away. He's bulky in a winter coat and the massive scarf, which he's pulled down just enough to reveal his face and both the uncertainty and anger on it. Otabek accepts the blame for that, knowing how the last time they'd spoken outside a ballet venue had ended. "What the fuck is going on?"

"I came to see you," Otabek says, still stupid and obvious. He can't take more than he gives this time.

_This time_, as if there is going to be such a thing. As if Otabek has the right to even talk to Yuri. Or see him. Or to consume Yuri with his eyes with an urgency that makes him shake and breathe in short gasps, leaving the evidence of it in the cold air as puffs of steam.

"So," Yuri says, challenging. "So what now, fuckface? You gonna break up with me again? Outside my place of work? Again? Just walk up and fuck my shit up, huh? Fuck you." The last is accompanied by a hand gesture that Otabek is sure holds a middle-finger, but can't see through the mitten Yuri is wearing, as Yuri turns away.

"Yuri?" Otabek says, taking a step forwards. "Please. Let me-" He's _selfish_. He can't let Yuri go without an explanation. Without the apology he's kept for a year and a half. He carried it through Europe that summer, all the way to Almaty, when it should've been said on the spot. When he should've known not to do something he'd need to apologise for.

"Yuri, please," he gasps and with two running steps is able to grasp Yuri's sleeve. He flinches back when he sees the badly disguised fear on Yuri's face, which then disappears under fury. "I know I hurt you," Otabek says in a rush, letting go of him. "I'm sorry. I just want to- I'm so sorry, Yura."

This time it's Yuri who flinches. "How the- What the f- _Asshole!_" he cries, pulling away again. "Get the fuck away from me!"

Otabek falls back. The fear is unexpected and colder than the temperature. It fuses Otabek's feet to the ground more effectively than ice or snow or broken bones. If he's the cause of that fear, then this time, instead of waiting for Yuri to shove him into traffic, he might jump in himself.

After a few steps Yuri breaks into a run and dashes across the street, causing cars to swerve and screech across the icy street. There's the chaos, in Yuri's twisted face and bitterly green eyes, leaving Otabek with the quiescence, the deathly stillness of uncertainty and dread.

#

Otabek doesn't ask Nurbek to pick him up a the airport when he's gets back from Moscow. A little because he doesn't want to bother him, but mostly because he doesn't want to hear it. The next morning at 7am Otabek and his gym bag get picked up by Nurbek's blue Audi anyway.

The greet each other with nods and sit in the convenient buffer provided by Nurbek's music choice, a pop music radio station. A choice made entirely to annoy Otabek, but given Otabek's stubborn refusal to talk, or make eye contact, it's Nurbek who ends up cracking. He locks the doors when Otabek tries to exit after the car's parked by the swimming pool.

"Nura," he growls.

"I don't understand what you're trying to achieve," Nurbek says.

"Right now? Some exercise."

"What happened in Moscow?" Nurbek says at the same time. "I'm invested in this, too, you know. Why do you always-" Nurbek bites off the end of the sentence and they sit in silence for a moment. "Sorry, Beka," he says then. "That sounded like mom."

"Yep," Otabek grunts. He's staring out of the window at the lit front of the fitness centre. The sky is just starting to get light at the eastern edge and there's a faint dusting of new snow on the ground, which still looks almost flawless and sparkly like sugar.

"You're torturing yourself. I know that's kinda your thing, but it's hard to watch when you just keep going." Nurbek proves this point by not looking at him. "People break up, why do _you_ need to be punished?"

Otabek slides down in his seat, as far as the leg space allows, looking for the thing he doesn't know how to put into words. "Because I hurt him."

"You said you did that on purpose."

Telling Nurbek about Yuri had been both cathartic and horrible. Reliving everything, but also getting to talk about Yuri. Nurbek didn't understand, but not because he didn't know what love was or anything as condescending, but because Nurbek has never lived for someone else's opinion, or felt like a waste of space.

"Because I thought he'd be okay, in the end," Otabek admits, painful like coughing up a blood clot. Yuri'd had people around him, why had he moved back to Moscow? "Let's go in," Otabek mutters. He's come to rely on the clarity of exercise again, doing something either so complicated or consuming that he doesn't have time to dwell.

The frozen fear on Yuri's face haunts him.

Later, home alone with the tiny succulent gifted by Aliya, and the work of preparing for the FC's season opening party in late February, he dials Isabella's number. He picks up the pearl necklace from the pile he likes to arrange it into when thinking and hangs it around his neck, pulling it around to cause friction on his skin.

"What's up, big guy?" she greets him. "You're on speaker, I've got to change Méi'er. You don't mind, do you?"

"Hello, Victoire," Otabek greets the baby dutifully. "I don't mind." Then he listens to Isabella coo at the baby and the baby make little sounds of her own. "JJ's lucky."

"Is that why you've rang me?" Isabella laughs. "Jack knows. All of London probably knows."

"Did he tell you- I went to see Yuri and he was afraid of me," Otabek says in a rush. "Why would he be _afraid_ of me?"

"Oh." There's some rustling and a baby giggle. "People are afraid of pain, Bex."

Otabek curls around his phone, pushing his fingers into his hair, and assumes crash position on his bed. "Why is he in pain?" he asks quietly.

"He saw you, didn't he?" Isabella says. "Good girl, Méi'er. All done."

Otabek concentrates on the pressure of the pearls against his throat, winding them tighter and tighter. "But it's been almost two years."

"You must've hurt him very much, then." Her voice is gentle. It's the nicest _I told you so_ Otabek has ever heard.

#

Otabek has six cousins on his mother's side and nine on his father's. Ten of them are married and seven have children. Five of them are younger than Otabek. Nine out of ten times this is brought up when Otabek goes home for dinner. It was a topic of conversation before he left to study in London, too, but it's become a much more insistent dialogue since he's come back.

But if Otabek's learned one thing, it's that silence is fucking golden. He doesn't acknowledge what's being said and concentrates on eating, although seeing Yuri has made the issue raw again, scraping against his insides like he'd swallowed glass. Enough to eventually make him put his utensils down and cross his arms across his chest and listen with a grimace.

"I've promised we'll host on Nauryz," Mother says. It isn't much of a surprise, they've done so almost every year of Otabek's life. Father is the eldest and wealthiest. "Otaym will play the dombyra."

"Didn't Gülizar say she wanted to do that this year?" Nurbek says, jumping in to defend Otabek. Their parents trade speaking roles with each other with the ease of people who've known each other a long time, often not leaving any space for others.

"Yes, that's been discussed," Mother confirms. "There's room for more than one performer, and I want my little bear to show everyone what he's learned."

Otabek, 24, the little bear, clutches at his own biceps. "Mom, I don't play that kind of music anymore."

"You borrowed my dombyra just last week for your music so I don't know what you're talking about."

"Son," Father says. "It's a simple request by your _mother_."

_It's hours of my life spent diddling a lute when I'd rather not_, Otabek thinks. "What do you want me to play?"

"I'll give you a list after dinner," Mother says and everyone pretends Otabek isn't fighting to not scowl.

"Doesn't the conservatory have a graduate programme?" Father says then. "You could pursue that, son."

"The department of folk music is also looking for instructors," Mother puts in, wiping her mouth with a napkin. "I had almost forgotten. You should apply, my cub."

Otabek shifts in his seat. _I have a job_, he thinks.

"That's a good idea," Father agrees. "A steady job. That'd do you good. You've become a pilgrim of convenience."

"Dad!" Nurbek says. "What does that even mean?"

"It means what it means," Father says stubbornly. He crosses his arms, too, leaning away from the table. "You do what's convenient instead of what's needed." He points his words at Otabek, who feels betrayed. They'd had an understanding since he'd come back. Father had not approved or supported at any greater rate than before, but there'd been an _understanding_.

Some of the resentment between them was always because they're very similar in temperament. Otabek won't be the first one to drop his gaze. "I don't want a job at the conservatory," he mutters. "And I don't want to study."

Mother sighs. "And I don't want an argument." She gets up and starts collecting the plates.

"Who's arguing?" Nurbek shrugs and pushes his plate aside. "Beka's got a job, dad. He's part of Kairat's media team."

"Why does he need you to tell me that?" Father questions, but at least he breaks eye contact with Otabek, who's left blinking the glare of the dining room chandelier out of his eyes.

"Because you never listen to _him!_" Nurbek says, beseeching. "He's told you this!"

"I don't recall," Father sniffs. Otabek gets up and follows his mother into the kitchen where she's rinsing the plates before putting them in the dishwasher. He knows Father remembers where he works, but Father's always been good at ignoring facts that don't suit him.

"I wish you wouldn't upset him," Mother says quietly as Otabek sits at the kitchen island, and leans his arms on the marble top.

"He upsets himself," Otabek mutters. He knows Nurbek will break the tension, probably by talking about football. It's the sport they both love, and Otabek can only imagine how proud Father was when Nurbek got a spot in Kairat. A lot more proud than he was when Otabek was accepted into Vaganova. Or the undergraduate programme in London.

His parents are at odds with what they accept and what they wish to change. When combined, nothing Otabek ever does is right. Mother wants him to concentrate on more traditional forms of music, Father wishes he'd used his athletic prowess for ball chasing rather than dancing. However, now that Otabek has returned, he finds Father cares less about the gay thing than Mother does.

"How was London?" Mother asks while the coffee brews and she arranges the fresh fruit and cheese on a plate. It's amazing that Otabek's been there for two hours and this is the first time his trip is even mentioned. Probably because Nurbek still lives there and everything worth saying has been said to him.

"Rainy," Otabek says. "My friend JJ made me the godfather of his daughter." Unexpected and undeserved, but nice nonetheless. There's no expectation he'll ever have to be more than a distant uncle-type figure who sends birthday presents but doesn't show up.

"Oh," Mother says and stops on the other side of the island counter to look at Otabek. "Did it inspire you?"

"To do what?" Otabek mutters although he knows what his mother means. "Mom, could you maybe stop talking about my sexual orientation like I'm just doing it to annoy you? Or does Nura have to come tell you that, too?"

She reaches across the counter and touches his hand. "My little bear," she says. Otabek doesn't know why he's the bear and Nurbek the lamb. "I just wish you were happy, and having a family is part of that."

Otabek bites back the immediate acrid reaction and nods. He can't smile tonight. "Thanks, Mom," he says, which is a wan attempt, but so is her's. He hasn't told his parents about Moscow. Mother would be unhappy and Father would expect him to forget about it.

He wishes his mother would hold him and tell him it's going to be okay.

But he's 24 and his mother hasn't held him since he was 15.


	7. Chapter 7

On March 1st Otabek sits crosslegged on his bed, in his tiny flat, the dombyra in his lap, and watches rain distort the view from his window. He plays idly, thinking of Yuri. His succulent has been joined by a poster—_A Study of a Head_ by Anthony van Dyck—not because the young man in it looks like Yuri, but because it _feels_ like Yuri. The same kind of head tilt and desperate gaze upwards. Usually desperately annoyed in Yuri's case. A poster-store find.

He's thought about Yuri almost every day since returning from Moscow. Some days it's more of a chore than a pleasure, while he tries to justify his desire to go back and try again.

The season opening party for the FC had been good and he's booked solid almost every weekend until summer for various parties the players have. It's nice and, Otabek suspects, largely Nurbek's doing. And he's yet to arrange a meeting with cousin Gülizar to talk about what they're going to play on Nauryz for the family.

The message that wakes up Otabek's phone is thus a good distraction, even if it's another baby update from JJ. Those have been constant and recurring, both private and posted everywhere on social media. But instead of what's expected it's a message in a long-dormant thread, just an address.

And sent by Yuri.

It's an address in Moscow.

He shoves the dombyra away and messages back, only to be notified he's been blocked again. But the address stays there, burning into his brain. For almost half an hour, every time the screen of his phone dims he touches it again to make sure it doesn't disappear. He doesn't notice he's chewing on the pearls around his neck until one cracks in half between his molars.

He spits out the pieces, barely hearing the crunch over the ringing in his ears.

For two days, he lets the address sit without action. But in the end he's just a fool.

A fool who travels to Moscow and enters a block of flats and climbs to the 10th floor because there is no lift. He's out of breath when he finds the right door, but his heart races for a completely different reason. For stupidity, for the utter idiocy of doing this, for the inability to say no, or let go, or accept that he's ruined it beyond repair.

He goes back down five floors, then climbs back up. Then he rings the doorbell which doesn't work, so he knocks. There's no movement behind the door, so eventually he switches to hitting his forehead against the door instead. He's a fucking idiot, thinking this was going to happen. This cruelty from Yuri is his fault, and he's fallen for it. And he will again.

The door gasps, then there's a faint _f__uck!_ from the other side, and Otabek leans back, almost receiving a faceful of door. A billow of warmth and steam overwhelms him, reminding him how cold the corridor is.

"You came," Yuri says, standing in the middle of the cloud of comfortable heat, hair wet and shorter, wearing a threadbare t-shirt that still says _fearless_ in faded letters, and an ankle brace. Otabek has never seen him look so naked, and so unlike himself, cold and hard and brittle like ice.

Otabek keeps swallowing until he thinks he can produce actual words. "Yeah," he then croaks, staring.

Yuri backs away and Otabek follows him in. He doesn't see fear on Yuri now, just anger. He's furious. His lips twitch as if to snarl, and his hands are curled into fists and pressed against his thighs, just under the line of his blue boxer-briefs. Otabek pulls the door shut behind himself and as soon as the lock clicks, Yuri impacts with him, pressing him into the door with tense arms and legs and a sharp mouth.

It's all Otabek wants, right there, kissing him so hard it hurts, pulling at his coat. But it hurts so much, and he turns his head away, leading to a growl from Yuri.

"You said _always_ and _anything!_" Yuri yells, their foreheads almost together, and slams a hand against the door, making the corridor behind it echo. "And I wanna get laid. That's what we do, _right?_"

Yuri's eyes are wide and glassy, and his lips are drawn back to show his teeth like an animal. He's shaking so hard it travels up Otabek's arms from the hands he's placed around Yuri's waist. Yuri smells wrong. Sweeter, more fruity than sharp. Otabek can't escape, if he's ever been able to at all. Even when the accusatory words from Yuri feel like being shredded by freezing needles.

"Yeah," he says again, and it's as good as consent, for him, and for Yuri, who kisses him again, just as sullen as before. His hands scrape up to tangle with Otabek's hair, the undercut he's gone back to, and the familiar yank against his scalp makes him yank Yuri closer.

The only thing Otabek manages to save from Yuri's wild hands are his headphones, which he places on a hook in the hall, but his phone, his backpack, his clothes, everything else disappears like common sense. He used to kiss Yuri like this before, as long as he could, or as long as Yuri let him. This time, it seems, Yuri doesn't want to stop either. He pulls and pulls and unsheathes Otabek from his clothes, bringing him to a bed. Of what is around him, Otabek only catches glimpses and impressions.

The walls are covered with old-fashioned wallpaper. The rugs are hand-made. There's an old rocking chair, covered in lace. A golden-hued icon is hung over an olive green sofa. The bed has a metal frame and it makes an ear-shattering squeak when Yuri shoves him down on it, and then stares at him head tilted slightly back.

There are no fairy lights. A ruddy glow comes from the bathroom and paints Yuri golden. His face is still a mask of fury, and the muscles in his legs jump visibly while he stands. Otabek finds no words. He slides his hands up the sides of Yuri's thighs, under the shirt, and pulls him down, too. Otabek remembers this part very well. He's barely stopped to breathe since he exited the plane. And all thought left with the first kiss at the door, same as the first kiss two years ago.

As if he could say no, even when he _should_.

There's so much to say, to tell Yuri, and Otabek tries to convey it all through touch. Pressure, lips, teeth, grinding, the admiration he's always held for the beauty Yuri possesses. He remembers where to bite and where to kiss, and how to suck Yuri off to relax him. He visits all the tiny tattoos scattered across Yuri's skin, and doesn't find any new ones. In turn, Yuri digs a thumb into the tiger on his chest, as if trying to peel it off like one would an orange. And he takes the hint when Yuri shoves a tube of lubricant at him, shortly followed by a carelessly and angrily tossed condom. But Otabek knows and remembers what to do.

He knows Yuri likes to straddle his lap and ride his fingers, arms clasped around his shoulders. Alternating with his head tilted back and forwards, staring or kissing, or mocking or laughing. But just anger this time, kisses that make Otabek's jaw ache, and hair-pulling that makes his scalp sting. Long furrows of scraped skin decorate his shoulders and his back after Yuri sits on his cock, and he takes the hint when Yuri leans back, grasping at the frame of the bed.

Yuri never minds being bent in half, dangling his legs over Otabek's shoulders or arms, or around his middle. He holds Otabek down, close enough to kiss and stare at intervals, not saying a word, except the occasional _fuck_ or _asshole_, both of which have no business warming Otabek's heart, but do so anyway.

Otabek comes when Yuri does, having been too caught up in trying to provide whatever it is Yuri needs or wants from him. It's even almost a surprise, and almost lost in watching Yuri. He kisses Yuri's damp forehead when they're done, still in him. "Happy birthday," he whispers.

Yuri plants his hand over Otabek's face and pushes him away, hard enough to be an open-handed punch. "Get off me," he snarls and rolls away, fighting with the sheets to get under them.

It's cold in the flat. It reminds Otabek of London. The temperature might be the same, but the way Yuri turns away, shoulders shaking as he burrows into the bed is new. Otabek disposes of the condom and cleans up a little, then returns to bed. Yuri was never a great cuddler, so Otabek doesn't approach him, just lies on the free side of the bed and stares up. An electrical cord trails across the ceiling, leading from the switch to the dusty glass overhead lamp in the shape of fluted flowers.

This is probably the worst thing he's ever done. And it's coming as the last of a long list of previously worst things.

"Yura," he says and shocks Yuri into stillness. He leans over Yuri's shoulder to see his face pinched shut, eyes closed and frowning, squeezing the sheet into one fist. A little pool of wetness has gathered into the hollow of his nose by his eye. "Yura," he repeats and tries to put an arm around Yuri, finding him cold to touch.

"Fuck off!" Yuri gasps and elbows Otabek in the chest hard enough to bruise. Otabek draws back. He can see the pain—Yuri's fucking _crying_—but he doesn't understand it. Or the firestorm of sex and blame.

He rubs his chest and Yuri sits up, drying his face, moving like he isn't in control. "Again," Yuri says, the word wrenched raw from his throat. He looks both terrifying and terrified, and somehow so incredibly beaten that Otabek tries to hold him back.

"Yura, please," he says, struggling with himself as much as Yuri, wanting and not wanting to say no.

"_Again!_" Yuri's voice is like a lash across Otabek's face. He crushes Otabek's lips under his own, fingers digging into Otabek's already abused shoulders.

Otabek is a gaping wound. Hurting. Longing. Trying to gentle the scathing mess of Yuri in his lap, trying to accept and contain whatever pain is his fault, trying to _understand_.

But Yuri doesn't grow any warmer, only more desperate until every breath between kisses is a sob, and his limbs settle, but stay hard to touch. Yuri allows Otabek to lay him back down on the bed, but refuses to look at him now, squeezing himself shut, eventually even against the kisses. Yuri disentangles and claims the blanket, turning his back again.

Otabek can't sleep there. He's not sure Yuri is sleeping either, but he doesn't try to find out. After a few hours of watching the ceiling and listening to Yuri's at times harsh and at times long and slow breathing, Otabek gets up and gets dressed again, gathering his things from the floor. The necklace of black plastic pearls tumbles from the pocket of his hoodie as he lifts it up by a sleeve. He collects it and runs the beads through his fingers.

It feels later than it is because he's three hours off his normal time, but it's just past midnight in Moscow.

There's a cat tree, and cat toys in the sitting room by the sofa. He'd spotted a litter box in the bathroom, but Potya is nowhere to be seen. He'd never befriended the cat, but she had usually made her presence known by staring and/or hissing if he was in her territory. She's not there.

One of the positives of living by yourself is that no one knows he's even left Almaty yet. In a few hours his brother will know. Well, he was going to disappoint Nurbek sooner or later again anyway.

He makes himself somewhat comfortable on the sofa. It smells faintly of pipe tobacco, and under that, age. There are claw marks on the arm and Otabek runs his fingers over them, trying to fit this place together with the Yuri he knew. Trying to fit this whole thing together with the Yuri he knew. It all comes back to him. This is his fault.

A few hours later Yuri comes out of the bedroom, wearing the same t-shirt and underwear as before. If the cold floors affect him, he doesn't show it. He looks gaunt.

"You cut your hair," Otabek says. The pale hair is a storm atop Yuri's head, but cut at the chin now. Yuri sneers.

"You found your abs," he drawls with the intent to insult, however truthful.

"Yep," Otabek agrees. "You seeing somebody?"

"Fuck you. _Yes_." It's a tone of voice Otabek's never heard from Yuri before and an expression he's never seen on his face. "You know what, get your shit and get out," Yuri snaps. He goes and grabs the pile of Otabek's things, his coat, his backpack and throws them at him. "Get the fuck out!"

Otabek stands up with the armful of his things, watching Yuri grab his boots and slam open the door so hard it bangs on the wall outside, then toss the shoes out into the corridor. "Wait," he says. "You made me come from Almaty to Moscow for _this_?"

"Yeah!" Yuri tosses his hair and crosses his arms. He's shaking again. "And you fucking did it! Gladly!"

Otabek shuts his mouth and nods. It's absolutely true. All of this is real, and incredibly idiotic, and because Otabek doesn't move fast enough, Yuri grabs the backpack out of his hands and tosses it out, too. It's real and it hurts, and Otabek walks out after it. Yuri slams the door in his face.

Otabek knocks, knowing there's not going to be a reply. Then he slides down the wall and takes stock of his possessions, making sure his phone still works. He's going to need it to book a flight back, and to respond when his brother inevitably rings to find out why he hasn't shown up.

"I'm in Moscow," he says by way of greeting when his brother does call.

Nurbek's sigh lasts a good many seconds. "What happened?"

"It's Yuri's birthday," Otabek mutters. Not the whole truth, but a broken off piece of it. No need to mention the angry sex, or being thrown out after it, or the heartbreaking tears, or any of the other details that are stomping Otabek to the ground. "I'll be back home later today."

Nurbek sighs again. "Okay. See you later, bro."

The drafty and unheated corridor isn't kind to Otabek's muscles or bones, or his weary mind. If this is the punishment, it isn't making him feel better. He wants to stay until Yuri comes out again, but he also suspects there's nothing he can gain from that. Maybe self-respect for sticking around, but that's never been his deal.

He collects whatever pieces of himself he can reach and limps out of the building before 6am to make his flight. The exhaustion feels almost the same as when he rode back to Almaty across Europe, just laced with a new kind of guilt and pain, growing exponentially out of his want and desire, feelings he shouldn't have after sex that was so obviously out of revenge or grief.


	8. Chapter 8

Afterwards it takes Otabek less than a day to realise his headphones are missing. He looks everywhere, even asks if Nurbek's borrowed them, and when he says no, takes the opportunity after a family dinner to go through his room. Nurbek, somehow, bears this.

"I left them in Moscow," he confides in Nurbek somewhat later, while his brother is driving him home. He'd known it from the start, of course, but hoped otherwise. He remembers hanging them onto a hook by the door, just before Yuri had mauled him. He can't share that detail.

"So you can go back?" Nurbek asks.

"Not on purpose." Otabek buries his head in his hands, but his agitated habit of pulling at his own hair is too much combined with the memory of his visit and he takes to flexing his hands instead.

There isn't much he can do. He still doesn't have a way to contact Yuri.

"They were the expensive ones, yeah?" Nurbek says.

"You're almost 23," Otabek replies as a distraction from the thoughts that bite at him. "And a professional footballer. Why are you still living at home?"

"Why aren't you? I don't have to do laundry or cook," Nurbek shrugs. "Or clean. Win-win."

"You have no privacy," Otabek says. "Lose-lose."

"You know I don't bring girls home anyway," Nurbek snorts and parks the car to let Otabek out.

"Such a good son," Otabek mutters and Nurbek laughs a little.

"Well, one of us gotta be, bro. Mom would die if I was a rebel like you."

"Yeah, what a rebel." Otabek unbuckles himself. "I did exactly what she wanted me to and got a degree in music."

"Yeah, it's not that you did it, but how you did it."

"She never specified that part," Otabek grunts stubbornly. "Thanks for the ride."

"See you tomorrow morning," Nurbek says with a grin as Otabek gets out of the car. He's the worst rebel because he never wanted to rebel in the first place, and the worst son because he's perceived as being rebellious. Great. At least he and his parents agree on the topic of his little brother if nothing else.

A few weeks later Otabek still hasn't replaced the headphones and is getting by on a pair of earbuds in the vague hope of _something_, something arrives onto his phone: a picture of his missing headphones and a hand with the middle finger up.

"That looks sinister," Nurbek opines about the picture the next morning, still out of breath after finishing his HIIT session on the treadmill. "Like he's about to ransom them for cash. Or break off pieces to send you."

Otabek agrees, but he can't stop staring at the photo. It does _look_ bad, but it's not the content of the message he's happy about, it's the fact that there's _a message_. And no notification of being re-blocked.

#

Sometimes a morning begins with a pile of pills. Most of them are vitamins, but some of them are painkillers and muscle relaxants. Usually those mornings come after days of mental stress, not physical stress. Otabek has begun to learn just how strongly he reacts with his body to issues out of his control.

Sometimes Otabek's body aches in ways that no pill can touch. Those days he limps because he's learned from his family that pain isn't real if it's not seen. And he wants them to see it.

Especially when he's bored, avoiding his familial obligations, done with the party and just editing music to with a bunch of publicity videos for the football club, and he receives another message from Yuri, a week after the previous one. He's wearing Otabek's headphones, only the upper half of his face in the picture, and the caption _mine now_.

It takes a considerable amount of self-discipline to drag himself to his physical therapist after the message, instead of just staying home to masturbate because the craving hits him like a punch in the gut. His physical therapist absolutely trashes him every time. A relief from the thoughts in his head through physical pain.

"Otabek." She's in her 40s, and has the arms and shoulders of a shot-putter. "Do you know why people who are really drunk survive things that would kill anyone sober?"

Otabek can't currently speak because she's pressing him into the mat to help release his hip flexors, but he grunts. It's mostly in pain, but partly in query.

"It's because they don't expect the pain, and they don't become alarmed when they see blood, so they stay relaxed." She lets him sit up and gasp for breath. It'll feel amazing later. "Which is the literal opposite of you. You're like a high-tension wire and you lock up every muscle as soon as you can."

"Sorry," he groans when she presses him down again.

"Don't apologise to me, Otabek," she says calmly. "Contact the masseuse I told you about. He's specialised in traumatic injuries. And stretch. Every. Day."

_I'm dying,_ Otabek thinks. _I want to see Yuri. _

And he wants to touch Yuri, to stop becoming increasingly familiar with his own hand.

But a part of his tension and pain are family-related, and late March is not the time to leave, no matter how hard his personal compass points north-west. Nauryz, the traditional new year, is a responsibility he can't shirk again. He accompanies Gülizar's violin with the dombyra and gets to escape most of the socialising.

The FC also has its own party, and Otabek finds himself chained to responsibilities until early April, burning with a hopeful anxiety even though there is no further communication from Yuri, after Otabek's reply of a thumbs-up emoji to his headphones being claimed.

Talking to JJ is a sort of a reality check. A reminder that there's even more that Otabek is responsible for, and that not everything can hang from a single thread.

"Look, it's no big deal, but Bella's mom _will _be upset if the baby's godfather doesn't at least send a gift for the 100 days celebration," JJ says, sitting sideways in front of the camera so he can keep an eye on Isabella and the baby in the background.

"What is the 100 days celebration?" Otabek asks, although he can make a guess. There are similar traditions in his culture. "What should I send?"

"Oh, you know, gold or jade or something like that."

"Jack," Isabella says. "It's just a token. A card will do."

"No, no, it's an important tradition!" JJ insists. "And I demand wealth for my child!"

Otabek feels his friends may have chosen poorly in making him a godparent. "I'll figure something out," he says. "Gold or jade is traditional?"

"Or something red," Isabella supplies, coming closer to the camera with the baby, who coos and waves her arms and laughs. "I don't suppose you can get Chinese lucky money in Kazakhstan?"

Otabek shakes his head. "I'll figure it out," he promises again. He wants to make an effort and not just order something off Amazon. When Isabella leaves the room, JJ turns his whole attention towards Otabek.

"I have no idea what the tradition is for," he admits without shame. "But it's fun. You know, they tell me a disaster lasts a millennium."

"Who's they?" Otabek mutters.

"Bella's mom. I think she means me, but I gift it forwards to you."

"Thanks. What does it mean?" Despite asking, Otabek feels the truth of it. _A disaster last a millennium_. It does fit.

"I don't know, but I'm glad they've recognised my staying power." There's nothing that JJ won't take as a compliment. "And you're gonna be receiving a red egg in the mail. It's _tradition_."


	9. Chapter 9

This time, before he leaves, Otabek has the decency to let his brother know, and not leave him to find out in the morning when Otabek doesn't show up to go to the gym. A non-aggressive message like that from Yuri is clearly an invitation. Or so Otabek hopes. What he doesn't do is inform Yuri that he's making the trip, in fear of being told not to come.

Spring isn't as far along in Moscow as it's in Almaty by the start of April. There are no budding leaves around Vostochny where Otabek finds something to eat while camping in front of Yuri's door to wait for him. He doesn't think going to meet him outside the Bolshoi Theatre is a good idea this time. Not that it's any less of an ambush to do it outside the door of his flat.

Yuri looks defeated when he sees Otabek there, late at night. He's also wearing Otabek's headphones. Otabek gets up to his feet, brushing crumbs off himself. A cross-swell of warm and cold waves fill him.

"Fuck off," Yuri says, but he looks and sounds so tired that Otabek doesn't think he means it. He doesn't have the ushanka any longer, or the big lumpy coat, and the long scarf is paired with a worn and patched-up denim jacket and a hoodie. He doesn't even wear the same kind of jeans as he did in London, the kind that moulded to his legs, but much looser ones, the legs of which are shoved into his combat boots.

"Can I-"

"You want your shit?" Yuri's voice is so flat. He tears the headphones off and shoves them at Otabek. "There. Now fuck off."

"I wanted to see you," Otabek says, holding the headphones, which are nothing but a flimsy excuse to visit. He wants to break the horrible tableau, make a gesture of comfort, but there's nothing.

"You've seen me." Yuri hasn't moved past Otabek towards his door, and his eyes go up and down Otabek. "And I've seen you. _Fuck. Off._"

Otabek realises he must look different, too. Yuri's estimation of him dressing like a hobo back in London hadn't really been that far off, and very different from the stiff pea coat he has on now. "Did you want to see me?"

Yuri's nose wrinkles and cracks the mask of indifference. "Ugh," he says under his breathand brushes past Otabek, making solid impact with one shoulder, and enters his flat. He doesn't invite Otabek in, but he does leave the door open in his wake.

Otabek steps in and closes the door quietly, pausing there in case Yuri wishes to punish him more, but Yuri's back is turned and he's unwinding his scarf in silence. The lack of something strikes Otabek again.

"Where's your cat?" he asks.

"Dead," Yuri says, without turning to look at him.

The cat tree is still there. The cat food dishes are still there. The toys are still across the floor. "When?" Otabek stands still in the doorway, growing cold with worry.

"February." Yuri kicks off his boots, leaving dirty marks on the wall where the muddy shoes impact with it, and heads down the narrow corridor to where it makes a right turn, disappearing beyond it.

Otabek hangs the headphones on the same hook as before and follows Yuri a few steps. The flat is small, almost claustrophobic. Walls close in on every side because it has been built at such a time when open-concept floor plans weren't yet a thing. A little corridor comes from the outer door and opens towards the kitchen and sitting room, where another short corridor goes on to two bedrooms and a bathroom.

Even though Yuri hasn't turned on any lights except in the bedroom to the side, Otabek can see the shape of the cat tree still in the sitting room between the sofa and the rocking chair. He follows the orange-yellow glow of the light that makes the marigolds of the wallpaper bloom and stops in the doorway of the second bedroom. A child's room.

"I'm sorry about Potya," Otabek says. Even if he'd never seen eye to eye with the cat, he'd still known she was important to Yuri.

A single reading lamp illuminates Yuri in the middle of the room, pulling on an old knitted sweater. It's too wide for him and hangs on him like he was just a child, too. The pattern and colours of it seem old, too. Yuri shakes his head.

"Don't talk to me," he says. This unbearably disconsolate version of Yuri makes the pit of Otabek's stomach ache. The cheerless, old flat that isn't bedecked with fairy lights and colourful pillows, or echoing with music. This child's bedroom with it's narrow bed, small desk and rows of painted wooden dancers on the shelf.

Otabek backs away. Which version of Yuri is the real one? Which version of _him_ is the real one? The one here, or the one who existed in London? "Yura," he says, despite Yuri's admonishment. "Why'd you move back here?"

"Got tired of speaking English," Yuri says and pushes past him in the narrow doorway. His face is impassive in a way that Otabek has never seen before. He'd always been able to read Yuri's emotions, even if most of the time he couldn't understand any of them.

"Can we talk?" Otabek asks. He expected anger from Yuri, not coldness. Not indifference. Not like he doesn't matter. Which is a terribly hypocritical thing to feel, but then, Yuri's always known he's a hypocrite.

"Do I have a fucking choice?" Yuri snaps and throws himself on the old green sofa so hard its feet squeak against the floor. His clothes are swallowing him and the only light spot in the dark is his face.

Otabek doesn't want to stand above him, or sit in the rocking chair, so he sits on the floor by the sofa, leaning on it by Yuri's feet. "I'm sorry about what I-"

"_Fuck_ _you!_" The outburst seems louder since everything preceding it has been quiet. "Shove your bullshit pity and your even more bullshit self-pity back up your ass and-" Yuri's tirade is cut off by a strangled, wordless growl as if he's fighting to keep something in check. Otabek cranes his neck to try and see his face.

"I meant-" he starts, but Yuri sits up and grabs his hair, forcing him to tilt his head back, against the edge of the sofa.

"I know what you meant!" Yuri yells, leaning close. "You asshole! You fucking _prick!_ You-"

Otabek doesn't resist, doesn't raise a hand to stop Yuri from hurting him. This is far less terrifying than the indifference. This is what he'd imagined would happen in the first place. Being burned, not frozen. The fury of someone who'd been so full of life.

"What kind of a fucking asshole breaks up with someone the way you did?" Yuri demands, tendrils of hurt coming through the wall of rage, glassy eyes cracked in the furnace of his frenzy. His other hand wraps around Otabek's throat. "Fuck you! You don't get to come back on your terms after something like that!"

"I didn't ex-" Otabek is cut off by Yuri squeezing his throat.

"_Can we talk?_" Yuri mocks. "Is it convenient for you _now?_ You regret it _now?_"

Otabek places his hand over Yuri's around his neck, but doesn't try to pry him off. He doesn't flinch away or try to avoid Yuri's eyes, but looks back, heart hammering. He can give into this. It's almost a_ relief_. Yuri's grasp on his hair makes his eyes water.

"I've regretted it every day since," he croaks. Yuri's hand is tight enough around his throat to make swallowing awkward.

Yuri shoves him away with a disgusted and angry grunt. "Fuck right off," he hisses. "Then why'd you fucking do it?"

"I had no choice," Otabek says. He knows it's not the answer Yuri wants, he knows there likely isn't any answer that would defuse the situation, but he can at least tell the truth, even if truth in a situation where trust is already gone may not do any more than lies.

"_What?_" Yuri's voice goes up in volume again.

"You wanted more. I couldn't give you more," Otabek hurries the words out, looking up at him. Yuri is leaning over him like a grotesque, face almost as fierce, too. Otabek shies back when he shoots up off the sofa, but he only steps over Otabek and heads into his room, slamming the door.

Otabek lays his head back against the sofa cushion and closes his eyes, trying to breathe out his tension like his therapist had taught him. In through the nose and out through the mouth.

He knows what self-imposed exile looks like, but he still doesn't understand why Yuri has chosen it. He doubts it's because Yuri was tired of speaking English, which means it's either a lie or a lie of omission. Which means Yuri is lying to him. Yuri, who had wanted nothing but truth. Yuri, who had deserved nothing but truth, and Otabek had still lied to him that spring.

He gets up and goes into the bedroom Yuri's appointed to him through elimination. His grandfather's room. Where they'd had sex on his grandfather's bed. But from the glimpse he'd seen of the other room—the child's bedroom—he would have chosen this one, too.

He sleeps on the sofa.

#

The slap that wakes him isn't gentle.

"There's no food," Yuri says. He's about a hand's width away from Otabek's face, only one of his eyes visible from under his hair.

Otabek grunts in surprise, blinking to clear his eyes. He's had this dream. "Yura."

Yuri's mouth curls in a sneer and he stands up.

Otabek follows, struggling to sit up on the unfamiliar, spongy sofa. "I'll go get something," he promises, half-whisper, half-croak.

"Whatever the fuck," Yuri says. "I eat at work." He turns away while Otabek climbs onto his feet, breathing hard from the sudden wake-up, and the horrible parallels of the first time he woke up with Yuri.

"Oh." Otabek runs his hands through his hair, grappling with reality. "I'll get something for when you come back."

"You're gonna be here when I come back? _Ugh_." Yuri stomps into a pair of fluffy boots, pulling the hood of his shirt up to fit over his coat. "_I eat at work_."

"Okay," Otabek says. "I'll get something for myself." He staggers after Yuri who's already at the door. "Yura."

Yuri looks back, vehement and bitter. He has Otabek's headphones snuggled into his hood, and half of his hair is tied back, but he still tilts his head to slide the strands away that fall across his eye. Otabek doesn't know if his knees are weak because he's just woken up or because Yuri does that. Or because one of them was crushed in a car accident a decade ago.

"I'm sorry," Otabek says.

"Go fuck yourself," Yuri says and slams the door in his wake.

"My headphones," Otabek tells the empty flat.

It's still blue outside and Otabek's phone tells him it's just coming to 6am. He's hungry, but true to Yuri's words, there's no food in the flat. There are some spices, but from years ago. Same with flour and vegetable oil. The fridge smells pretty bad and Otabek suspects that these food things may have been left there by Yuri's grandfather years ago.

He almost heads out to buy something, but realises he doesn't have the keys to be able to come back. He's there without permission, so doing anything feels wrong. He still has a shower, as quick as he can, and then almost gathers Potya's toys off the floor when he steps on a particularly pointy mouse. But that isn't for him to do, and it doesn't look like Yuri's ready for it yet.

It doesn't make sense to Otabek that Yuri would exile himself here.

Otabek gathers his things and leaves the flat, ready to spend the whole day outside. There's plenty of things to see in Moscow, and he might as well do that, in addition to maybe finding wi-fi somewhere.

Yuri still has him blocked on Instagram. As does most of the Royal Ballet. JJ has nothing but baby pictures up, and Otabek goes through them dutifully because this is his godchild. He will be involved in this new life, out of loyalty and care shown to him by her parents.

He updates his brother on the goings-on and the fact that he's left wandering the city until Yuri shows up again, which Nurbek leaves on read and Otabek feels he deserves that.

Yuri comes home so late that Otabek has made himself comfortable in the corridor and met a few babushkas from the other flats. Somewhere between the second and third babushka Otabek had seriously considered leaving because it was possible Yuri _was_ actually seeing someone and had gone to stay with them. But then he clutches the huge tub of freshly made pelmeni he's bought and stays, sinking into himself.

He isn't the same as when he was living in London, and Yuri's sparkles have become bits of broken glass. If neither of them is the same now, then they won't be the same together either. But then it also won't end the same way. Can it be the same at all? Is there anything left? The scrambling in Otabek's gut when he thinks of Yuri says there is. But is it guilt? Is it just memories?

And Yuri's face is just as defeated as before when he sees Otabek sitting against his door. "You do not take a hint, huh?" he mutters while Otabek shuffles himself and his backpack aside.

"Guess not," Otabek says. Yuri leaves the door open again. _Fuck off_ isn't a hint as much as it's a straight-up order which Otabek has also failed to execute.

Yuri grunts and drops his bag and outer clothes on the floor. His hair is still wet. It never seemed, before, that his work took so much out of him. He was often just as jittery and restless after as he was before, still radiant with energy. Looking at the bent head and drooping shoulders now, Otabek wants to pick him up and carry him to bed.

But he doesn't touch. He lets the door lock click shut quietly. There's no cat to come greet Yuri. Otabek places the food container on the chipped plastic-sheet covered table in the kitchen and finds a plate, a fork and a glass for himself. "Do you want any?" he asks when Yuri hovers in the doorway, watching. "They're pork." He only abstains from pig-meat at home.

"No," Yuri says, arms wrapped around himself. He reminds Otabek of the time he was frozen after the bike ride in London. Otabek pours himself sparkly water to stop looking at him.

The food is far from hot, but the slightly congealed insides of the dumplings don't put Otabek off at all. By the time he's eaten his first one, Yuri is sitting across the table and using his fingers to dig pelmeni out of the tub and dumping it into the complimentary sour cream before shoving it into his mouth. Otabek pushes the glass of water closer to him and Yuri drinks it in one go, then continues eating.

"Who starved you?" Otabek mutters rhetorically. He's never seen Yuri turn down food and this time is no exception. Maybe he hasn't eaten that much at work.

Yuri licks his fingers clean. "My mom," he says and dives in for more. The overhead light makes the thinness of his face even more prominent by creating shadows under his cheekbones and eyes.

Otabek falters. "What," he says.

"_What_," Yuri mocks with his mouth full, then swallows enough to speak. "Why do you think my grandpa got custody?"

Otabek shakes his head, alarmed, as Yuri grabs the fork he isn't using.

"Mom wouldn't come home for days sometimes." Yuri uses the fork to spear two dumplings at once and swirls them in the sour cream until they're covered. "So I ate what I found or stole food and got caught a lot. One time when I was six or something she didn't come pick me up and they got grandpa instead."

Otabek feels the cold of internal pain take him over from his chest down, radiating into his hip and knee with furious intensity. Yuri doesn't bother using the glass, but drinks straight from the bottle to wash down the food. _And then_, Otabek fills in, _your grandfather died when you were sixteen._

"Do you have any family le-"

"No," Yuri cuts him off. They exchange a stare, Yuri's face hardened into that terrifying indifference, and Otabek unable to look away, caught in the web of this revelation like the moth to Yuri's moon he is.

The only reason Otabek has made it back to his feet—literally, the first time—was because of his little brother. Family. And Yuri has none left, chose to leave the ones he chose, and then had his cat die. Otabek may be a walking travesty, but he had seen how loved Yuri was by his peers and his fake dads in London. It doesn't make sense that he would leave that, but then, Otabek never understood any of Yuri's motivations.

"Why did you move here?" Otabek asks, the words falling out of his mouth already cracked and hurting.

"This is my home," Yuri says, and it sounds off-handed, but it isn't. And Otabek doesn't believe him. Otabek has folded his hands, one over the other, to keep from curling them into fists, but he can't stop his heart from doing that.

"I don't thi-" he starts.

"This was my grandpa's. Now it's mine. So it's my home," Yuri says. Otabek senses the conversation is fast hurtling towards its end. "_They_ made it clear I wasn't family," Yuri adds then, mumbling the words into the neck of the water bottle. "_They_ talked about nothing but that fucking _poodle_. Like it was their _child_."

He slams the bottle down, shoves the now empty food container off the table like an annoyed cat, and leaves. Otabek flinches when Yuri slams the door to his bedroom, not so much because of the sound, but the implications of what he'd said. The shattered mask of indifference, hiding someone who has to come to believe that love is finite.

#

Otabek's flight is noon the next day. Yuri doesn't wake him up that morning, but Otabek is awake. He watches and listens to Yuri move around and then leave. When it's Otabek's time to go, he makes a point of leaving his headphones in the kitchen where Yuri has placed them.

_Yours_, Otabek writes on a piece of paper and slides it under the headphones.

He hopes this isn't the last time he visits Moscow. He wishes he didn't know how alone he's leaving Yuri.


	10. Chapter 10

A further few weeks into April Yuri starts messaging Otabek. The messages consist of only rows of middle fingers, but Otabek treasures them all the same, and responds to each separate message with a thumbs-up of his own. It's communication, if not actual conversation.

"It's almost every day at the same time," Otabek confides in his little brother about the messages. "I think it's when he gets off from work."

Nurbek takes one look at the message history. "This is it, Beka. There's a party tonight, you're coming."

"I'm that pitiful?"

"Nah, you're just that _bored_. I'll come pick you up."

True to his word, Nurbek, with the back seat of his Audi full of his friends, swoops Otabek along that night. It's a version of his pub nights with Leo and JJ, just a lot louder, faster, and more free with drugs. The venue is transient, a giant tent set up in an empty car park under the shadow of Kok Tobe.

Both the light and the sound are massive. The tent can't contain either. From the outside, when the beat drops and the lights sweep, it's like looking into a cloudy fishtank, the mass of people moving as one, like grass under water. Otabek thanks his brother by nodding at him. It's nice to be out of his head and out of his guilt, and for once attend a party without working at it.

Inside the tent is not like a fish tank at all. Smoke machines have filled the highest points in a rolling cloud which lights turn a rainbow of colours. It's hypnotic and gets even more so as the night passes, and Otabek spends a lot of time looking up at it, swaying to the beat.

He loses Nurbek and all sense of time, but locates a friendly body, a tall young man with bleached and purple hair, happy to pretend the slim figure and welcoming mouth belong to Yuri. Happy to wipe out his agitation and longing for even just an hour or two. Then he bids his partner an inaudible goodbye and pushes his way out of the tent.

The car park is covered in a haze, both a meteorological mist as well as the leavings of about half a dozen people vaping and laughing in a circle, and the escaping smoke from inside the tent. A few of them nod at Otabek as he stumbles out and into the rows of cars to look for his brother's blue Audi.

Otabek doesn't drink at home, but water pipes are common and just as commonly filled with cannabis, which he's pretty happy to partake in. It's relaxing, up to a point, then it hurts his throat. And the sweet essence smell of the vape clouds make him feel sick.

The windows of the Audi are fogged up. Otabek knocks and the back window slides down with Nurbek peering out, upside down, laying on the back seat.

"What?"

"You're my ride," Otabek says and leans down to see the girl trying to cover up. "Hi, Rani."

"Hi there," she replies, holding her top against her bare chest. Her short skirt covers the part where she's obviously joined with Nurbek.

Otabek doesn't move, placing his elbows on the edge of the door. "Are you using protection?"

"Yeah, we are. Can you go away?" Nurbek says, trying to look angry, but he's too smug underneath. He grabs an empty condom wrapper from somewhere and tosses it out the window at Otabek. "We'll be done soon." Rani slaps his bare chest.

"Do you need me to keep an eye out for your boyfriend?" Otabek asks her.

"No, it's fine!" she squeaks.

"Okay," Otabek agrees. "Have fun. Bye, Rani."

"Bye," she echoes and the window slides back up. There's laughter from inside the car and Otabek decides to walk around the car park a few times. It does a poor job of clearing his head and he ends up standing somewhere in the sea of cars with his phone out. He loiters under the cotton candy vape clouds and checks his messages, which has been his new favourite thing to do ever since Yuri unblocked him.

**O> yura**  
**O> yura yura yura**  
**O> im looking at stars**

He feels hazy and almost good. There's no response, but maybe that's enough. Maybe this is all Otabek is going to have with Yuri. Creeping on him on the internet and hoping he's well, not an unwelcome visitor in a life that's not meant for him.

"Beka! Bro!" Nurbek's voice is followed by a car horn and a flash of lights.

Otabek puts his phone away and gets into the car that Nurbek's thoughtfully driven up to him. The car smells when he gets in, but Otabek keeps his opinion to himself when he spots Rania still in the backseat.

"Promised to give her a ride," Nurbek grins, shifting into gear.

"Another one," Otabek corrects and Nurbek just laughs. Rania kicks the back of his seat.

"Don't tell my boyfriend," she says and Otabek gives her a thumbs-up between the seats. None of his business who or what she decides to ride.

"For what it's worth," she continues, leaning between the seats, and speaks into Otabek's ear. Even that slight stimulation makes him shiver. "I think you're the better-looking one."

Nurbek takes a turn more sharply than needed. "Thanks much!"

Otabek rubs his ear while Rania regains her spot between the seats, laughing a little. "But I have to make do with what I have," she adds, reaching her hand out to pinch Nurbek's ear. He snorts in amusement and pushes her hand away.

"You'd be outta luck with Beka, anyway," he says. "He's left his heart in Russia."

"Aw, who's that, then?" she inquires.

"A real babe," Nurbek explains, glancing over his shoulder at her. "Ballet dancer."

"Stop talking about my love life. No offence, Rani," Otabek mutters, hoping to guide his brother's attention back to driving. He trusts his brother, but he'd trusted Civan, too, and he'd crashed. It hadn't instilled any car phobia in Otabek, maybe strangely so, but rather a person phobia.

"Oh, but now I'm curious," she says. "A ballet dancer. Is he anyone I would know? Like, is he good? Famous?"

"Shit, I don't know," Nurbek says, driving slower on the smaller streets. Familiar streets. "Is he any good, Beka?"

"Yep," he says, because it'd be a crime to not admit that. His ear itches from Rani's breath. She might even recognise Yuri's name, being a dancer herself, and knowing just how good Yuri is.

"Aww, you're not gonna tell me?" Rani pouts when Otabek doesn't continue.

"Bingo," he says under his breath when the car rolls to a stop in front of hiss building. He's glad his brother's decided to bring him home before Rania, although that's probably only out of convenience of getting a second round in after he's gone.

"See you," Nurbek says as Otabek gets out.

"Night, Nura," Otabek replies and Rania wiggles into the seat he's vacated without bothering to come out of the car to do it. She waves and Otabek nods, then heads into the building. The Audi's break lights make the street red for a moment as it slips away quietly.

_He's a babe._ Not the words Otabek would've used to describe Yuri, but absolutely fitting. Although, Otabek guesses, it's another b-word Yuri would reject.

He doesn't have fairy lights, but he has nanoleaf, tuned to a cool, dim red when it's dark. It's something he'd lifted from Yuri, among other things. They illuminate enough at night to see by, but don't cause false wake-up signals like blue light would.

Otabek stumbles through the red haze into his bed, undressing on the way. The only thing he leaves on is the pearl necklace, which he'd had on the whole night under his shirt. He's a mess of disjointed sensory information: the making out, Rania's breath, memories of Yuri and the pearls rattling against his chest and across his nipples as he lies back.

He doesn't really need the pictures, but he pulls up his laptop and his collection of Yuri's selfies and the few random nudes, all saved for personal use, unashamed about most of them. April's running down, towards May. He hopes he gets to see Yuri in the summer, like in his favourite selfie, wearing the white clothes over tanned skin.

He'd created a lazy slideshow a long time ago and runs it again, laying on his back and head tilted to the side to watch the still pictures. He twists the pearls around his neck and pulls on them, making them run across his chest and catch on his nipples again. He presses his other hand against his mouth where the most recent memories lie, even though the boy at the club had been a very gentle kisser.

The pictures roll by and Otabek sucks on his fingers slowly. He unloops the pearls and rolls the length of them around his fist, taking that hand down to his cock, just to run the cool bumps of the beads against the hot skin. He trails his wet, slippy fingers down his chin and throat and uses them on his nipples this time, twisting and pulling.

It isn't even the nudes that make him start fucking his own fist, but a grainy selfie he'd screenshotted off Snapchat, of Yuri sticking out his tongue and raising his middle finger. It'd been meant as a fuck you, but the timing of the snap had been off and Yuri's mouth is still open, like he's waiting for it to be filled. Or that's what Otabek imagines, squeezing his eyes shut and lifting his hips off the bed. The pearls and his tight grip are painful enough to remind him that this is a punishment.

#

The way Otabek finds out Yuri has unblocked him on Instagram is to receive a notification he's been tagged.

**👁️ing thru my grandpa's old ** **cam ** **mem card****. found this. so it IS true.**

The recognition takes a moment to download into Otabek's brain. It's a picture of one of the junior training halls at Vaganova, mid-session, Yuri's bright blonde hair in the centre, and heart-droppingly, Otabek sees himself in the corner of the picture, but looking towards whoever—Yuri's grandfather—took the photo. He likes the picture, then embarks on a journey through Yuri's post history through the last two years.

The last post he remembers is from the picnic they'd taken in Surrey. Yuri and some sheep, Yuri and Otabek's bike, with Otabek's arm visible in the picture. Then there's almost nothing for the whole of June and most of July. The posts come back in August, but with no selfies, just city views from various windows. The tags say #tokyo and #royalballettour, then #newyork and #royalballettour. There are also so, so many cats.

Little by little Yuri returns, looking like venom and sugar, and it's almost the same as before Otabek. It changes again after he moves to Moscow, disappearing almost completely, sharing pictures of Potya instead of himself. And then nothing between when Potya must've died in February and this picture from the past.

**Oh, is Otabek back?** phichit+chu comments under Yuri's post.

**Otabek? Short and salty?** 🧂 christophe-gc identifies him.

**thought he was persona non grata to yurashka!** says mila-babe-cheva.

**can u gossipy fucks stop conjecturing based on a picture thats literally ****from ****10 yrs ****ago ****???** yuri-plisetsky enters the conversation with heartfelt annoyance.

Otabek notes that Viktor and Yuuri's screennames don't pop up at all.

However, after a day there's a comment from Yuri on his selfie with Nurbek under the _You'll Never Walk Alone _-gates. Being unblocked means Yuri can also see Otabek's Instagram again.

**wtf**, the comment says, **theres 2 ???**

**little brother**, Otabek replies. He's never told Yuri about his little brother. The all-around better version. He wants to bring Yuri to Almaty and introduce them. Yuri doesn't keep the conversation going, but there's a double row of middle fingers later. Just like there'd been after Otabek's messages after the party. It's enough. It's recognition of something shifting.

Even later, when a row of middle fingers ends in a familiar cat face, and Otabek hasn't found any proof of communication between Yuri and his erstwhile dads for months, Otabek's ire shifts, too.

He's thumbing through the few weeks' worth of one-finger salutes from Yuri after hanging soundproof panels on his walls for an hour with Nurbek's help, when it hits him and he finds Viktor's phone number and rings him, making sure it's an appropriate time in London.

"Hello," Viktor says in English, and hearing his voice makes an unpleasant shudder travel down Otabek's spine.

"Привет, Viktor," he replies in Russian, while Nurbek returns from washing his hands and makes questions with his eyebrows. Otabek holds up a finger to his lips and puts the phone on speaker.

"Ah, Otabek," Viktor says as though he's found something disgusting in the sink: somewhat expected, but still unwelcome. "There should, perhaps, be some limit to your persistence. I thought I made the matter entirely clear months ago."

"I just want to know what happened," Otabek says. Instead of a reply, there's some scuffling at Viktor's end.

"You demon!" Yuuri says in his accented English. "You hurt Yurio so bad! How dare you call us!"

"Darling," Viktor says in the background.

"We tried to tell you how precious he is and you ignored us!" Yuuri continues and Otabek covers his face with his hand.

"Look, I don't need you two to tell me I fucked up," he says. Has Yuri told them he's been to Moscow? Have they told Yuri he was in London?

"I'm so angry at you!" Yuuri cries, ignoring him. "You took Yuri from us! He left because of _you!_" It's nothing that Viktor hadn't already told him, but Otabek has a different view of the picture now.

"He left because of your dog!" Otabek argues back, as if he didn't hate himself enough already over this whole mess. His words are met with silence.

"Otabek," Viktor's voice comes back, reasonable, cold, sharp. "Could it be possible you've been in contact with Yuri lately?" He sounds like what Otabek imagines a beautiful dagger would feel like when stuck between the ribs. He clutches at his side because it stings.

"I've seen him," he admits while Nurbek makes faces. He'd told his brother about Yuri's so-called parents, but being exposed to them in their undiluted form is something else.

"You've seen him," Viktor repeats. "And he told you he left because of our _dog? _He left because he wanted to move back to Moscow, to join the Bolshoi, leave London and you behind. That's what he told _us_."

"Yeah, I'm sure he did." Otabek sighs. He bends over and lets his forehead rest against his desk. Why is he trying to make up with the three people in the world that probably hate him the most? "Did you know his cat died?"

"Potya?" Viktor sounds actually surprised. Yuuri makes some sort of distressed sound in the background.

"Yeah, didn't he tell you?" Otabek takes from the silence that Yuri hadn't told them. The people he'd let Otabek call his dads for months, and accepted them in that role. His family, essentially, and they don't know what's happening? "When did you last speak to him? She died in_ February_."

"He told us-" It's Yuuri again.

"Yuri's always been… independent," Viktor fills in. "He told us to go fuck ourselves, if I remember correctly."

"You haven't tried to keep in contact with him?" Otabek can't keep the blame out of his voice. "What the fuck are you doing? He's all alone there! I don't care what he's told you, he doesn't have anyone else _left!_ He thinks you _replaced_ him with _a dog!_"

The line is nothing but static until Yuuri's voice comes back.

"Um. Phichit told me Yuri had complained that all we do is talk about Makkachin. Do you think- Viktor? Do you think he really thought we replaced him with Makkachin? We didn't! Why would he think that?"

Otabek can guess at the answer to that. _Everybody's left him. He thinks people stop loving him. It's my fault, too._ The guilt is acid.

"Yuuri, darling," Viktor says, taking the surprising stance of believing Otabek. "Perhaps we could visit Moscow soon? Surely Phichit will come take care of Makkachin for a few days."

Yuuri's reply is in Japanese, and that's when Otabek hangs up. This is enough. This is too much. He shoves the phone away, making it fall into Nurbek's lap, sitting in the stupid velour bean bag chair Otabek had bought because he'd liked the purple colour. Otabek lifts his head only so that he can get his elbows on the desk, shoving away his wireless mouse, and puts his face in his hands.

"So?" Nurbek says after Otabek fails to initiate any sort of information transfer.

"I fucked up so bad," Otabek mutters. It should've been obvious from learning that Potya had died and he'd likely been the first and only person Yuri had contacted, if only to have sex with. To try and connect? To try and make himself feel better? And knowing Otabek would, out of guilt, come to his door without asking any questions. Would Viktor and Yuuri have done the same? Yes, almost certainly, but Yuri hadn't believed so.

"Can't wait to fall in love," Nurbek says, horrified.

"No, you'll be okay," Otabek mutters. "It's only this bad if you're a fuck-up like me." But how could he have known?

"Hey, Beka," Nurbek says. "You're not a fuck-up." He sounds so serious that Otabek looks up at him and finds his little brother watching him with an unhappy face.

"Uh." Otabek spreads his arms and gestures at himself, at everything. What has he ever done except made the absolutely worst choices he could possibly have?

"Shut up," Nurbek says, climbing out of his entirely impractical seat. Otabek grabs the long string of black pearls off his desk and winds it around his neck, holding it up like a noose until Nurbek slaps it out of his hand.

"Thanks for the help," Otabek says, giving up. "You want to crash here?"

"Nah, I'm going home." Nurbek stretches and heads out. "Anytime, bro."


	11. Chapter 11

The middle fingers stop arriving some days later and Otabek misses having them, but there's no reply to the question marks he sends to query after the absence. Instagram reveals the reason a little later with a picture of Yuri's kitchen, Viktor shrugging with a wine bottle in each hand, Yuuri wearing an apron, and Yuri's face halfway in the frame, scowling massively. #dads #tfwtheyvisit it says.

Even if it's titled ironically, it eases a massive knot in Otabek's chest.

A few other pictures follow in the next days, much in the same vein as the first one, and Otabek likes all of them without comment. He has forfeited his right to comment, and attempts to be satisfied with this view from the outside in. He manages to crack another pearl between his teeth, and doesn't know what he's waiting for until it arrives within a day of the last picture posted.

**Y< asshole** 😾

It's a summons he's happy to obey.

**O> you called?**

**Y< HA**  
**Y< once an asshole always an asshole**

**O>** 👍

This seems to be the sum of what Yuri wants to communicate. Otabek waits for fifteen restless minutes.

**O> can i skype u**  
**O> tmrw around this time?**

The reply is still instant.

**Y< yea** 🐈

Otabek doesn't try his luck and message him more. The cat is neutral. Yuri is receptive. He wants to keep it that way.

The next day he makes an unscheduled visit to his parents' house. Father is away in Singapore again on business, and seeing Mother alone in the big house, Otabek can see she's lonely. It makes a little more sense that Nurbek would still choose to live at home after that.

"Mom," Otabek says from the doorway of her studio. She looks up from the sheets on her note stand.

"My little bear," she greets him. "I didn't hear you come in." The studio is sound-proofed so she wouldn't have.

"Don't you think I'm too old to be called little?" Otabek asks, not going in because he's not invited. She sets her dombyra aside and stands up, extending her arms towards him.

"Not as long as you're my son," she says. When he doesn't move she makes a beckoning gesture with her hands. "Come here."

Otabek moves slowly to her and they hug, but it's careful and distant, a quick touch. "Do you think I stopped being your son at some point?"

"I think you wanted to," she admits.

"No, I never-" Otabek starts.

"I just wish you'd chosen an easier path," she says, looking up at him.

"Chosen?" Otabek chokes on the word. "Mom, if I could choose-" He brings his voice back under control. "That's not why I'm here. I wanted to ask you if I could borrow your jetigen?" He gestures towards the seven-stringed zither in its case.

"Oh, of course," Mother says. "I don't need it for a while. Do you still remember how to tension the strings?"

"I think so," Otabek says, but she takes the instrument out and shows him anyway. It's nice, despite everything. He'd learned to play it sitting in her lap.

"Can I ask you why?" she asks, as careful as the hug, as she puts the jetigen back in its case and closes it. She doesn't offer any other mitigating phrases to let Otabek deflect, but Otabek finds he doesn't even want to deflect.

"I told someone I could play one and he didn't believe me." Otabek takes the case from Mother, hefting it in his arms, hesitating. For the first time in years there seems to be light between them, and maybe it's just a reflection from her dangling earrings, but Otabek wants to tell her about Yuri, about making himself fail because he isn't good enough.

Mother hesitates, too. "Is he... much older than you?"

Otabek's chest churns as though his ribs were pressing in. "What? No, he's... He turned 21 just a few months ago."

The relief is palpable and Mother puts her hand to her chest. "That's good. That's good."

Otabek clutches at the case so hard his shoulders start to shake. "Why would you think he was older?"

"Well, you know," she says, moving away to arrange her notebooks and shift things around needlessly. "I was always a bit worried after your first. He was so much older."

"He was three years older," Otabek says. Actually the same age difference he has with Yuri.

"Yes, but... He was eighteen and you were fifteen." She glances at him and arranges the bangles on her wrist. A nervous habit. "So we decided to instruct you to be careful. We told you this."

"No," Otabek says. "You told me to concentrate on ballet or not be welcome home."

"I don't recall," Mother says.

Otabek steps back, shrugging, trying to drive the tension from his back because it's going to hurt soon. He _can_ choose now, he can choose something that might make him happy, regardless of how his parents feel. "Nevermind, Mom. Thanks for lending me this, I'll get it back to you soon." He hefts the case and turns to go.

"You're welcome," Mother says. The light must have been a reflection, after all.

#

When the call goes unanswered for the first five rings, Otabek has to remind himself that Yuri owes him nothing. He glances at the zither and misses Yuri picking up until he speaks.

"Hey," Yuri says. Neutral. Neutral is good.

Otabek snaps his head back to his laptop screen. "Hey," he says, out of breath.

"Look at you," Yuri snorts, not in a fond way. He only goes pixelated if he moves fast, but otherwise the picture is clear. Yuri is backlit by an old desk lamp, and the walls behind him are colourful with posters. It's the smaller bedroom.

"Yeah," Otabek agrees, barely listening. Yuri's shoulders are bare thanks to the tank top he's wearing, his hair is shuffled to one side, too short to come over his shoulder like it used to, but still enough to draw all of Otabek's attention to Yuri's neck. The side that's uncovered has the little tiger tattoo and Otabek touches his identical one reflexively. The ghost of the pain of Yuri digging his thumb into it makes him ache.

"So what do you want?" Yuri puts an end to Otabek's aimless staring. "Actually," he says before Otabek has the time to pull himself together and reply. "Why'd you never tell me you had a brother?"

Otabek shrugs. "Didn't come up." At Yuri's wrinkled nose and disbelieving curl of lips, he attempts to elaborate by gesturing with his hand. _A lot of things never came up_.

"Forget it," Yuri sniffs. "Show me around your place."

Otabek picks up his laptop and pans it around the bedroom/living area. "This is pretty much it."

"Not as shitty as I expected," Yuri admits. "What's that thing on your wall?"

Otabek looks at the poster, feeling strangely guilty over it. "It's a reproduction of a painting called A Study-"

"Oh my God," Yuri interrupts him. "I know what a fucking poster is. I mean the light thing!"

Otabek turns the laptop obediently. "It's called nanoleaf." It serves the dual purpose of bringing both the red twilight he associates with Yuri, and the changing colours of living above the club.

"It's cool," Yuri says airily.

"Thanks?" Otabek says and places the laptop back down on his desk, sliding it around to face himself again. Yuri looks bored, or tired, but hasn't hung up, even though he's looking at his phone instead, chewing on his fingers. Otabek lifts the zither out of its case and makes himself comfortable in front of his carefully arranged setup.

"Yura," Otabek says, refusing to relinquish that little bit of familiarity Yuri had demanded of him before. He runs his fingers over the strings, which catches Yuri's attention.

"What the fuck is that?" Yuri questions, leaning towards his monitor.

"It's a jetigen. A Kazakhstani zither," Otabek supplies. He'd practised a little earlier, just to make sure he could still play the instrument. He picks out a melody, hesitating through chord changes.

"What the fuck?" Yuri repeats, but his eyes are wide and not bored. "I didn't think you were serious."

_He remembers._ Otabek ducks his head and keeps playing. "Why would I lie about this?" His fingers are getting more certain on the strings, and he repeats the simple melody. A training piece he'd played hundreds of times as a child.

"I dunno. To impress me?" Yuri huffs. "Seen dudes flex with weirder stuff."

Otabek stops playing and looks up at his laptop. He can't meet Yuri's eyes through the camera. "I would've chosen a different instrument if I'd been trying to impress you."

Yuri pulls his knees up and puts his chin on them. "Oh yeah? Which one?"

"The drums, maybe."

Yuri snorts, but it's not unamused. "Why would that impress me?"

Otabek shrugs and runs his fingers over the strings, making them ring. It seems to keep Yuri's attention. "What kind of weirder stuff?"

"Like how to solve a Rubik's cube," Yuri says, closing in on exasperated.

"Did that work?"

Yuri's eye-roll matches the poster almost perfectly. "Shut up and play me something."

Otabek could probably play the zither without looking at it, but it's safer to keep his eyes turned down. The simple melody evolves and soon he finds himself borrowing tunes from the local pop-music scene, a not so guilty pleasure.

He keeps thrumming on some lower notes after he's exhausted his very limited library of things to play on a zither and looks up. Yuri is curled up, head tilted sideways so his cheek is resting on his knees and arms wrapped around them. He's rocking himself slowly, and Otabek doesn't want to disturb him, so he continues to play, picking hesitantly through the same song he'd played for Yuri on his birthday two years ago. It makes Yuri's eyebrows draw together and pinch his face into a pout.

"Yura," Otabek says softly.

"What?" Yuri mutters.

"Can I come see you again?" Otabek asks. Yuri's eyes come open and he stops swaying. Otabek's fingers falter on the strings and he places his palms flat on them to end their reverberation.

Yuri's shoulders go up, then down, his mouth purses and his brows draw down, then go up again as he sucks his lower lip between his teeth. Then he reaches for his laptop. "I'll think about it," he says and hangs up.

Otabek exhales and falls back in his chair. It's better than he'd expected. Much less name-calling and cursing than usual, which could mean Yuri is either mellowing out or tired. Or, the worst case, no longer thinks Otabek is worth being called names or cursed at.

He doesn't expect the pinging of his phone ten minutes later.

**Y< ok** 😾  
**Y< arrive on a tuesday**  
**Y< do not come to the theatre**  
**Y< stay max 3 days**  
**Y< & consider a fucking hotel asshole**  
**Y<** 😾 🔥 🖕 🔪

#

"When do I get to meet him?"

"I barely get to meet him, Nura. Why would you?"

"You're going there right now!"

Otabek doesn't concede the point. "Thanks for the ride."

"You promised me!" Nurbek makes a final attempt as Otabek opens the passenger side door to get out.

"Then you invite him," Otabek grunts. More likely Yuri'd come over if it was anyone else in the world than Otabek asking.

"Beka!" Nurbek complains, but it's silenced by Otabek slamming the door shut. Nurbek opens the window. "Be careful!"

Otabek thumbs-ups him. What's there to be careful about? He's already made so many mistakes that a few more won't matter. And if it turns out Yuri's only allowed him to come so he can push Otabek out of his 10th floor window, then Otabek will be fine with that.

Maybe he'll even tell someone about his punishment fantasies at some point. When they stop bringing him any relief and he'll need to find something else to do the trick.


	12. Chapter 12

With the hope that Yuri won't enforce the hotel thing, Otabek makes his way to the now somewhat familiar address in Moscow. He'd tried to time his flight so he wouldn't have to wait too long, provided that Yuri came home straight from work. He'd picked a mid-May Tuesday, and told Yuri the date, and since there'd been no objections, Otabek had made the trip.

Yuri doesn't answer his door so Otabek descends the ten floors and goes to find something to eat. Something that'll keep so he can share it with Yuri when and if he comes home. There are a few benches outside the building and Otabek picks one near the right door. When the sun no longer reaches his seat, he bundles up with a scarf and fingerless gloves, and tucks his legs under himself, slightly uncomfortable. A man comes and passes out on the next bench over, spilling cheap vodka from a bottle in his hand.

After a good half an hour Otabek is sniffling and has to get up and walk, both to get warm and to stretch his legs. He does this with grim pleasure, relishing the pain and the chill. When he circles back he spots two small cats sniffing at the unconscious man, making funny faces at the smell of alcohol.

_Yuri_, he thinks and picks out his phone, filming what turn out to be kittens, one completely black and the other black with a white spot on its forehead, and who come sniff at him. But since Otabek doesn't share his food with them, they soon run off.

"Hey, asshole!" comes a familiar voice. "I see you!" Otabek comes up from his stoop and looks behind where Yuri is jogging towards him. He only looks slightly annoyed, and stops just short of running into Otabek. His hair's barely held back in a tail and there's looseness to his movement that Otabek hasn't seen in a long time. He's wearing Otabek's headphones and Otabek swallows his disappointment at not having Yuri run into him.

"I brought food," he says. "And you just missed some cats."

"What?" Yuri scoffs. "Yuuri was here, my freezer's fucking overloaded with food." He gives Otabek a suspicious once over. "What cats?"

Otabek plays the video and hands his phone to Yuri instead of moving to his side and showing him. It might too much or too little. He could never tell, with anyone, but especially with Yuri. He'd find amusement in things Otabek couldn't fathom, and laugh. Whatever it was, it's gone now.

Yuri hands him his phone back, expressionless, and turns to go in. "So you didn't get a hotel room, huh?" he says, assuming correctly.

"Your dads visited?" Otabek sidesteps the question.

"Oh my God." Yuri stops on the first set of stairs and turns to look at Otabek, three steps behind him. He's so tall that Otabek has to crane his neck up to meet the dim green eyes. "Stop calling them my dads. It wasn't funny two years ago and it isn't funny now."

Yuri doesn't move so Otabek says, "Okay, but you called them your dads, too." Viktor had left Yuri, too, and Yuri had forgiven him.

Yuri narrows his eyes with annoyance, but instead of pinning Otabek down for long he turns and continues up the stairs with the skip of someone with unending stamina. Otabek keeps up out of sheer stubbornness, even though the long stretches of sitting and cold have made him a little sore. He looks at his feet while on the stairs instead of following Yuri's jeans-clad ass like he wants to.

_I'm sorry_, he repeats in his head over and over again. _I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. _He thinks it for every stair he takes, sixteen times ten, and is entirely exhausted at the top. The building has fifteen floors and he doesn't understand how the babushkas climb up and down those stairs every day.

"Are you gonna sleep on the sofa again?" Yuri asks as he opens the door to his flat. "Just use the _bed!_"

"It's your grandfather's," Otabek objects, out of breath.

"He isn't fucking using it!" Yuri says and stomps in. It smells like cardamom inside and a red glow paints the old plastic-embossed wall-paper with shadows. The corridor is made tighter by piles of cardboard boxes.

Yuri charges into the dark and red, not turning on any lights as he goes. Otabek closes the door and goes in slowly, trailing his hand on the wall and stumbling over shoes and the boxes in the entryway. The kitchen is dark, the sitting room glows red with the addition of a string of red, heart-shaped lights. There's more boxes. The gold icon is gone from the wall. The first light clicks on in Yuri's bedroom.

"So did you bring that zither?" Yuri asks.

"No," Otabek replies, stopping in the doorway of the room again. It's tiny and has a single bed. A desk and a chair and a chest of drawers, half of which are open and overflowing with clothes. There's no overhead lamp, just an empty socket with wires hanging out and the light comes from a now familiar desk lamp. This is where Otabek wants to sleep. The wooden dancers are in the process of being wrapped in newspaper and packed away.

"Ugh, useless," Yuri asserts, peeling off a hoodie with a pattern of cat paw prints crossing it, and a skull-shaped zipper tab.

"You didn't ask me to," Otabek points out. He hasn't even taken off his coat. "And it's my mother's. She needs it."

Yuri stops midway pulling his t-shirt over his head and lets it settle back down. "First of all, who invited you into my room? And second," he stops. His face flickers between angry and questioning, but he doesn't finish his thought.

Otabek backs up a step. It's too much, but he wants to watch because he can't touch. "Sor-" he starts.

"Why does she need it?" Yuri asks flatly, cutting him off. He takes off his socks by lifting one foot at a time, but doesn't continue undressing otherwise.

"She's a composer," Otabek answers. He backs away quickly as Yuri walks out of the room.

"So you made up with your family, huh?" Yuri says loudly, accusing, as he walks through the little corridor and around the corner into the kitchen. It'd be foolish to reply standing where he is, so Otabek goes after him again, finally taking off his coat.

"I haven't been disowned," Otabek says. It's the best case scenario. "Yet."

Yuri is pulling a container out of the fridge and Otabek remembers the food he'd bought. He isn't sure Yuri would share so he takes out the styrofoam package and places it on the table. There are more boxes in various states of being packed.

"Are you moving?" Otabek asks.

"I should've packed this shit up years ago," Yuri says without answering the question. He eats his food cold right out of the container, standing by the sink.

Otabek sits at the table, feeling as attractive as the cold take-away. A weak mess. "When do you come back tomorrow?"

Yuri snorts into the container, which he's lifted to his mouth and his scraping the bottom clean with a spoon. He drops both into the sink when he's done and wipes the back of his mouth. "My day off is tomorrow. Why do you think I told you to come on a Tuesday?"

As it so often happens with Yuri, Otabek is left staring in an abject state. Hopeful warmth unspools in his stomach and lends itself to tingling on his fingers and his cheeks. "You're going to spend the day with me?"

Yuri looks down at him through his pale lashes, the hints of eyeliner still clinging to the corners of his eyes. He steps away from the sink and scoops up Otabek's take-away. "I'm gonna go watch YouTube in my room."

Otabek watches his food leave, cotton-mouthed. Yuri had never bought him that pint of beer, either, so Otabek doesn't have high hopes of getting the food back. But he's happy to sacrifice his meals if it means Yuri will look at him like that again, and spend the day with him.

The telltale sound of a door slamming doesn't come, and music starts up, which draws Otabek into the doorway. Yuri has balanced his ancient Macbook on his knees and is happily digging through Otabek's golubtsy, picking apart the cabbage leaf wrappings to get at the inside.

"What?" Yuri says, mouth full.

"You didn't close the door," Otabek replies. Is it oversight or an invitation?

Yuri swallows, licks his lips, eyes tracking up and down Otabek. "You can close it on your way out," he says, adding, "right now," when Otabek doesn't move.

So much for spending time with him. Otabek acquiesces with a nod and pulls the door shut between them. He washes up in the tiny bathroom and lays himself on the sofa, listening to the noise from whatever Yuri is watching, and plays with the string of black pearls he's looped around his neck. Tremors travel up and down his spine, confusing his fatigued body and mind with hope and arousal. Before he falls asleep he notices the cat things are gone.

#

A weight landing on Otabek snaps him out of his restless sleep. His breath is driven out and his eyes fly open, but it's still dark and red. The weight is uncomfortable and digs an elbow or a knee into his gut. Then a face pops into view, which Otabek barely recognises in his only half-awake state.

"Beka. Beka. Asshole! Wake up!" Yuri's fingers rap against his cheekbone. "I can't sleep. I keep thinking about those kittens. We have to go find them."

Yuri's weight disappears before Otabek has the chance to either enjoy it or hold him there, and then the clothes he's folded aside rain down on him. He sits up, heart staggering towards a normal rhythm while he tries to breathe.

"Hurry the fuck up!" Yuri says on his way to the kitchen, and Otabek doesn't find the ability to object. He goes after Yuri, struggling to find the sleeves of his pullover, and Yuri comes at him, snorting.

"What the fuck is this?" Yuri demands, one plastic container in hand, the other reaching to pull on the pearls Otabek hasn't removed. "You're still wearing these?"

Otabek stumbles towards him even though he doesn't exert any force on the necklace. "Yep," he croaks. Yuri's fist goes tighter around the pearls for a moment, eyes glowing a neutralised green in the red light, then he releases them.

"Come on, Beka," he says and brushes past Otabek to get his coat and shoes. "Kittens shouldn't be outside in the cold."

Otabek could argue that no one should be outside in the cold, but there's that b-word again. He'd go anywhere after Yuri calls him that. They run down the stairs, or, Yuri runs down the stairs, barely touching them, swinging himself around at every turn by holding onto the handrail and launching himself off the second to last stair, and Otabek shuffles behind, trying to keep up.

They burst outside and their breath condenses into steam although it's weeks into May. Cold seems to linger. Yuri rips the container open.

"Where'd you see them?" he demands, striding towards the benches.

"Uh." Otabek catches up, trying to orient himself in the dark of the sparse street lighting and after being woken up so suddenly.

"Did you lie to me?" Yuri says, stopping.

"What," Otabek manages, dropping his hand that he'd used to point where he'd filmed the cats.

"Did you lie to me about the cats?" Yuri demands, crowding closer. There's a growl in his question.

"No," Otabek says.

"Because I don't know if I can trust you," Yuri continues.

"I saw them here," Otabek says softly. _It's not about the cats._ "Right here."

"The thought of trusting you again makes me sick!" Yuri hisses.

Otabek doesn't react to the hissing and spitting, he holds on to the _again_.

"You lied to me for six months!" Yuri looks like he's blazing, surrounded by a halo of light and steam. When Otabek shakes his head, because he hadn't lied until the end, Yuri snarls and throws the container at him. It infuriates him to the point of making a broken growl when Otabek just catches it.

"You selfish prick!" Yuri howls into the silence of the very early morning. "I thought that you of all people wouldn't hurt me! And then you hurt me even more! And it's all my fucking fault for trusting you in the first place!"

Is this the process of being forgiven or being cooked alive inside a bronze bull? Both are so painful. "Yes," Otabek says. "I'm selfish. I'm useless. A hypocrite and an asshole. You're right, I'm-" He gestures around, aborting his words. _A disaster that lasts a millennium._

Lack of sleep, lack of sense, and lack of food all conspire to make Yuri into some sort of a demi-god in the dark and dawn. His hair is fire, his words are fire, his body radiates the energy it had been so devoid of earlier, but it's anger and betrayal and sharp obsidian glass edges that will make Otabek bleed. He steps into it anyway, because it hurts.

"Yura," Otabek says, holding the food container cradled against his chest as though it's precious. _Truth. What other basis for your sorry-ass existence do you want?_ And he speaks the truth, "I want you to come home with me."

Yuri inhales sharply, lips curling back like he's about to attack. "Fuck you, _Otabek!_" He shoves at Otabek's shoulders with both hands.

"I'm sorry I left," Otabek says. A century of regret. "I thought you'd do better without me. Better than me." Yuri shoves at him again, face hard and indignant, but also speechless and waning.

"Everybody leaves me!" he gasps, pushing Otabek back one step at a time. He blinks his eyes rapidly but instead of dispelling the tears, it makes them spill. Otabek's chest collapses into a neutron star, compressed and heavy.

"I'm here," he says.

Yuri's hands migrate from Otabek's shoulders around his throat, which makes Otabek tilt his face up so there's more room for Yuri to strangle him. But instead Yuri cups the base of his skull and kisses him.

It's not like any kiss they've had before. Yuri is hesitant and Otabek is misaligned. Yuri smells too sweet, like pears and vanilla, and tastes like salt. There's too many teeth and too dry lips, and wet cheeks. Otabek is still breathless afterwards, when their mouths smack apart and Yuri says _ugh_ under his breath, pushing Otabek away again. He turns and tramples into the new grass and budding shrubbery, tearing leaves and limbs.

"Where the fuck are the cats!" he roars.

Yuri moves erratically across the yard, blond hair flashing in the dark. Otabek doesn't even know what time it is. Late enough for the streets and the yard to be empty of other people. Only one car has passed by, but the city still hums. The air is warming. The imprint of Yuri's lips on his is warm.

"Yura," he calls out. He's the heart of a dying star, reigniting. He still has Viktor's cold hope. His feet are leaden, but they still move. He's still here. He stops by Yuri.

"I'm not coming to your shit-ass home," Yuri says, responding to Otabek's earlier request. He's louder than necessary, breathing ragged and fast. "To see the parents that'll hate me? No thanks!" His voice cracks and he kicks at some grass, bringing up clumps of mud with the worn toe of his combat boots.

Otabek nods his understanding. "Why did you think I wouldn't hurt you?" he asks quietly, not sure he deserves an answer. Yuri grabs the container from him. His eyes are pale wounds.

"Don't you get it?" Yuri says, voice hoarse. "'Cause you were already hurt, too."

_You're like a wounded animal._

Yuri places the dish down, in a depression between the roots of a tree, and backs away. His glance at Otabek is despondent.

"Yura," Otabek says.

"Go fuck yourself," Yuri replies and wipes his cheeks with a heedless hand, heading back inside. Otabek catch up to him and wraps an arm around the skinny waist under the coat with the tiger stripe panels, surprised that Yuri doesn't push him away. Surprised that Yuri walks up the stairs slowly, not quite leaning on him, but not leaning away, either.

Back inside there's only silence. Yuri kicks off his shoes and drops his coat and goes into his room. Otabek doesn't hold out much hope for sleeping again, but he lies down on the sofa anyway, exhausted. He doesn't register Yuri until he's by the sofa, bending over him, and then climbing on top of him, pulling along a blanket.

"Yu-" he starts, but Yuri hushes him with a hand over his mouth and fits his head under Otabek's chin and stays there, in the cradle of Otabek's arms and legs. A pocket of superheated air forms between them.

Otabek slides one hand around the back of Yuri's neck and the other around his shoulders, smoothing the threadbare cloth of his shirt with his thumb. He'll give up his chances of sleep for this, and if Yuri's old habits hold, he'll get up in a few hours to eat anyway.


	13. Chapter 13

**O> im in hell**

Otabek sends the message with a snap of the office lobby, with queues ten deep leading to various windows of business. Yuri is still front and centre in the picture, but turned away to gaze towards the front of the row. Otabek puts his phone away and rejoins Yuri.

"Did I look good?" Yuri asks.

"You always look good," Otabek replies, not bothering to deny Yuri had been the subject of his photo. Or ask how Yuri had noticed him taking the picture. Or that he's definitely biased towards Yuri's particular brand of imitation art beauty.

Yuri shakes his hair back, which is turned an odd colourless pale by the fluorescent lights of the windowless reception area. "Why'd you take it?"

"I was telling my brother I'm in hell," Otabek says, which earns him a glance from Yuri's similarly washed-out eyes.

"I'm part of your hellscape?" he snorts. His hoodie almost swallows him, encasing him from neck to upper thigh and to the tips of his fingers. Between the overlarge shirt and the massive combat boots, Yuri's legs look thin, even if they're dense with muscle.

"Sort of," Otabek confirms without explaining that Yuri is somehow both his hell as well as his paradise. The queues are only a small part of the whole. He doesn't know why they're there, and Yuri hasn't bothered to explain. It's been an hour and Otabek flexes his left thigh restlessly, trying to ignore the beginnings of strain from standing basically still for such a long time.

"Tell me about your brother." Yuri faces forwards again.

"He's lucky," Otabek says without much thought. If he stands right behind Yuri's shoulder, he can smell the faint sweetness in his hair instead of the people around them, and concentrate on the sound of his voice instead of the constant murmur of a crowd. "He's _fortunate_," he corrects himself. "He's made fewer mistakes than me. But I guess he's also a little bit lazy and irresponsible," he muses.

"I thought he was your twin," Yuri says as they shuffle a few steps across the scuffed concrete floor, behind a bent old man with a cane.

"We look nothing alike," Otabek replies when the logic behind Yuri's comment registers. The selfie with Nurbek is the only photo he has that doesn't portray a thing or a scenery.

Yuri looks down at him through his lashes, a stitch between his brows and the corners of his lips turned up incredulously. He seems perfectly rested on a few hours of faux-sleep between Otabek's limbs. Perfectly unfair when Otabek feels the strain of it in every corner of his being.

"'Cause he's a bit taller than you?" Yuri says.

Otabek shakes his head, sharing Yuri's incredulity, but for the opposite reason. He knows he doesn't look too dissimilar to his brother, and the features work on Nurbek, but on Otabek they become contorted. Sometimes, if he doesn't recognise himself in a picture, he thinks he's looking at his brother instead, or a stranger.

"He looks... like a person," Otabek explains.

"Huh," Yuri says as if he has touched upon a revelation. "You think you're ugly."

Otabek shakes his head again, looking down at his feet, the tips of his boots next to Yuri's. Sometimes he barely feels like a person at all. "No." He's mangled. "Yes. Maybe. I can't see myself the same way."

Yuri pulls up his hood to shade his eyes and slips his phone out. He types something quickly, dragging his thumbs across the screen. Then Otabek's phone beeps in response and he takes it out with a glance at Yuri who's watching him expectantly.

**Y< ok but do u think i fucked u cause of ur PERSONALITY**  
**Y< ????** 😿 🙀  
**Y< & not cause ur hot af ???**

Otabek stares at the words, heat trickling up the back of his neck, until Yuri snorts. "I don't know," Otabek admits and shoves his phone back in the inside pocket of his leather jacket, lifting his chin to see into the privacy of Yuri's hood. He manages to whip his head around when Yuri lifts his phone and snaps a picture of him in turn.

"You don't know," Yuri mocks. "Oh my _God_, Beka," he says with such _feeling_.

"I don't understand you," Otabek says. "So yeah, _I don't know_."

"This'd be almost sweet if I didn't fucking hate you," Yuri declares. The old man looks over his shoulder at his language, but with a glint of approval in rheumy eyes. "And if you weren't such a self-pitying piece of shit."

"Okay, I get it," Otabek mutters and Yuri snorts again. Otabek, however, does not get it. Since he has such a shitty personality, and since he looks like something wrung through a meat-grinder—which is what he _feels_ like—then he really doesn't understand why Yuri became interested. _Hot is a temperature_.

The queue leads to a window titled _Housing_. The pearls Otabek is wearing under his shirt feel very heavy when Yuri's idle weight-shift brings his upper arm to touch against Otabek's shoulder. Otabek curls his hands into fists and shoves them into his jacket pockets to keep from resting his arm around Yuri's waist.

Late that spring two years ago, they'd been in a queue, too. For kebab. It had been in a time and a place where Otabek was able to pull Yuri in and slide his arm around Yuri and put his hand into the pocket of Yuri's hoodie on the far side, and make him stand even closer. In this place and this time, he neither has the right nor the courage.

Another twenty minutes later they're at the window, and Yuri pulls out a wad of forms he's filled and argues loudly with the man on the other side. The city of Moscow has pledged to tear down the old Soviet-era khrushchyovkas, and while there's no timeline for when it happens, getting rid of a flat in one of the massive blocks is not easy. After all the waiting, they're booted out after only five minutes at the window.

The noise of Yuri grinding his teeth in frustration is deafening.

"You own the place, yeah?" Otabek asks outside.

A disgusted groan emanates from Yuri's hood before he actually speaks. "Yeah. Why?"

Otabek is tired and sore, both from holding Yuri on the sofa and from standing for a few hours, so he thinks Yuri must be, too, and changes the topic. "Are you hungry?"

Another grunt arrives from the depths of the hood before Yuri flips it down and shakes his hair out, then shakes his shoulders and doffs the accumulated stress. "_Yeah._ Let's go get breakfast."

Yuri had eaten at 7am like Otabek had known he would, but four hours later, two of which had been spent in the grasp of Russian bureaucracy, he's cross and hungry again. And Otabek, for the first time, understands the signs, the comfort of food, so he doesn't bring up the fact that this would rather qualify as brunch and not breakfast.

It doesn't matter. Yuri can eat as many breakfasts as he wants.

They sit down for a mid-morning meal of no name, and Yuri photographs the imported strawberries and the breakfast blini dusted with powdered sugar. Everything is too rich and sweet, but Yuri powers through without hardly a pause to breathe. It's the first time Otabek really notices how horrible his table manners are. He sits quietly, chin in hand, and watches Yuri dig strawberry seeds from his teeth with his fingers, absolutely entranced.

He doesn't even duck under the table when Yuri inverts the direction of attention and aims the accusatory camera of his phone at Otabek. He only lowers his eyes to look at the remains of unripe strawberries instead.

"What do you think I should do with my grandpa's- my place?" Yuri asks from behind the phone.

"Do you want to live there?" Otabek asks, unnerved by the fact that Yuri doesn't put his phone down.

"Not really," Yuri says. "Grandma, grandpa and Potya all died there. Not exactly great memories."

"So leave," Otabek says, flicking his eyes up at Yuri behind the phone. "Even if you can't sell it or rent it."

Yuri finally lowers the phone and regards Otabek straight-on, hair pushed aside just enough to make both of his eyes visible. One of his shoulders is higher than the other, and his face is skewed in the same direction with indecision. "There's some good memories, too."

"Memories aren't a place." Otabek runs his hand over his face and hair, looking down at the table again. "JJ and Isabella still run the club. I was there. They've turned the upstairs flat into a breakroom. It's never going to be the same."

Yuri's face and body tilt into the other direction, switching from indecision to wistful and then wrinkled-nose annoyance. "You're the expert, asshole," he sniffs. "Good at leaving and then coming back when it's no use anymore."

It'd been so disheartening returning to Almaty and finding nothing had really changed. Seeing the flat above the club refurbished had been sort of freeing instead. The bad doesn't have to remain. "It's no use anymore?"

"Undecided," Yuri mutters and gets up, clattering his chair back.

"I'm learning to stay," Otabek says on the street, squinting up at Yuri who magicks out a pair of sunglasses and plops them onto his face. He's tall and radiant like a sunflower. _Stop it. It's not the season for heliotropes._

"When's your flight?" Yuri asks, belying all of his snippy outrage by nudging into Otabek as they walk down the street. It's narrow and bustling, and overshadowed by the presence of the Kremlin just a few blocks away. Kitay-gorod houses both most of the government buildings as well as a colourful array of small restaurants and parks in the nooks and corners of the paved roads. It's quite beautiful, if one looks past the connotations with communist rule.

"Day after tomorrow, 6am," Otabek replies. It might be nice to be a tourist in Moscow one day. For that reason Otabek misses JJ. The arrogant optimism, the determined and unashamed desire to be a tourist when they'd both been new in London and lived in the same halls of residence. "You said three days, so..."

"I know what I said," Yuri replies.

Otabek doesn't want to miss things or people any longer. He places his hand briefly on the small of Yuri's back, looking up at him for an averse reaction, but there's nothing. He doesn't tense up, which is encouraging. Or at least preserving of the status quo.

Kitay-gorod's transport hub puts them on a bus and they sit at the very back of the vehicle, with Yuri by the window, leaning his hooded head on it. Otabek sinks in his seat until his knees touch the back of the seat in front of him and closes his eyes. Somewhere during the ride Yuri puts his hand on Otabek's thigh and leaves it there. Otabek thinks he is going to have a hand-shaped burn on his skin under the denim.

#

The TV in the sitting room is quite old and small, and clearly unused for decades, with a colourful cloth over it and a vase. Leftovers from Yuri's grandmother, as are the doilies and the beautiful tea set and samovar hidden in the cupboards. Yuri pulls all these bits and pieces out restlessly at the flat and then wanders from one to another dejectedly, carrying a cardboard box.

"Do you know how to use a samovar?" he asks.

Otabek is on the sofa with Yuri's old Macbook, flipping through the contents of Yuri's grandfather's camera memory card. The resolution isn't amazing, but he doesn't need much to appreciate the opportunity to see into Yuri's childhood through his grandfather's lens. There are even pictures with Viktor in them, beaming at the camera with a scowling preteen Yuri under his arm.

"No," Otabek says because Yuri can't see him shake his head. "Do you?"

"No!" Yuri bunches up the doilies and drops them into the box. The vase goes next, then Yuri's ability to continue. He throws himself on the sofa, slouching and splaying his legs. Otabek has learned a long time ago not to be attached to things. Leaving is much easier like that.

"Visit," Otabek says. "Me, in Almaty. Please."

Yuri drums his fingers against the arm of the sofa, making a face. "For fucking what?"

"Because I'd like you to."

"Don't push your fucking luck," Yuri snaps, then looks at the picture on the laptop's screen. "Vitya was my legal guardian from when I was sixteen until I turned eighteen."

Otabek doesn't know what his face is doing at first when he smiles. It stretches uncomfortably and the noise out of his throat is a hoarse chuckle. "So he _is_ your dad."

"Oh my God," Yuri says. "Literally did not know you could smile."

_Give as much as you take._ "JJ and Isabella had a daughter," Otabek says.

"Ugh," Yuri mutters, eyeing Otabek. "You mean Leroy and the poor woman he married?"

"They made me her godfather."

Yuri's breath stutters and then he _laughs_, tossing his head back. "What the fuck!" he chortles. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah," Otabek breathes, watching in amazement and rapidly increasing desire. "It happened."

"Oh my God," Yuri repeats, and cackles. "What were they _thinking_?"

Otabek shrugs. His initial reaction had been similar, just on the other side of incredulity, not amused but despaired. They'd still trusted him with something like that, even if the gesture was mostly symbolic. And Yuri trusts him enough, right at this moment, to laugh. It's like air in Otabek's lungs after years of not breathing.

He closes the Macbook deliberately and shoves it under the sofa, then catches Yuri's eye. "Are you seeing someone?" he asks.

Yuri's lifts his chin, laughter ending on an indrawn breath when he resorts to his slightly downwards stare. "Not anymore," he says, challenging.

"Were you seeing someone in March when-"

"None of your fucking business," Yuri cuts him off.

"Okay." Otabek shifts closer and slides his arm around Yuri's shoulders, splaying his hand against the side of Yuri's jaw, and kisses him. He smells like oranges.

Yuri's skin and hair are soft under Otabek's hand, but his lips are stiff. Otabek doesn't want to press the issue so he pulls back to find Yuri's eyes wide open and staring at him.

"Sor-" Otabek starts, but Yuri shoves him back, collects his legs under himself and launches onto Otabek, carrying him down onto the sofa. It creaks under them and something sharp digs into Otabek's lower back, but he forgets it when Yuri takes his face between his hands and kisses him.

Some of Yuri's fragrant hair ends up between their tongues, but instead of stopping, Yuri only pulls the strands away with an impatient swipe. Otabek sucks on the tip of Yuri's tongue, and lets it hook behind his lips and teeth, the same as Yuri lets Otabek gather his blonde hair into his fist and hold it out of the way. Otabek's breath hitches in the back of his throat when Yuri's thigh presses on his already hard cock.

"Huh," Yuri breathes between their mouths.

Otabek grunts and pushes Yuri's mouth back on his with a hand. He has no embarrassment left over for how strongly he reacts to Yuri. Or any doubt that he doesn't want this. Maybe his self-preservation instincts have finally given up and he's going to drown, with Yuri holding him under the surface.

This must be a punishment, because all punishments begin with guilt and shame, and the excitement that precedes pain. The end will be when there's nothing, not even pain. Even then, letting go is difficult. Yuri breaks the kiss to twist his head and swat upwards with his hand to dislodge Otabek's grasp on his hair.

"Ow. Asshole."

Otabek lets the pale hair fall out of his hand, and strokes the back of Yuri's head, smoothing the strands to one side. "Sorry." Yuri's huff of acceptance touches his upper lip.

"Stubble, too," Yuri murmurs and rubs his lips against Otabek's chin, breath warm and slightly fast. His eyes almost fall shut.

"Not good?" Otabek hadn't had the time to shave. Or the equipment. He checks even though Yuri is brushing against him like a pleased cat.

Yuri shakes his head. "Not that. Been a while."

So whoever he'd been seeing hadn't had stubble. Or kept himself shaven. Otabek brushes his thumbs up the sides of Yuri's face, the soft and smooth skin. "Nobody else has a face like yours."

Yuri narrows his eyes.

"A compliment," Otabek clarifies in reaction to the expression. He could watch Yuri make faces all day. _Music._ "Beauti-"

"Pick another word!" Yuri snaps immediately.

"Okay. Luminous."

"What am I, a pregnant woman?" Yuri rears back a little, baring his teeth.

"A supernova."

Yuri shifts on him, purposefully, and Otabek groans, although the noise is swallowed by Yuri's mouth. Making out had been a late development to their physical relationship. It's fitting if it begins again with that. Yuri's ass seems to welcome Otabek's hands when he grasps it and uses it for leverage to make sure Yuri keeps grinding down while they kiss.

When Yuri's hand makes it under the hem of Otabek's shirt, to the scar on his abdomen and the tattoo over it, Otabek sits up, still holding him. "Your room," he says.

Yuri tries to lean away, but Otabek's arms are around his waist and he can only kneel on the sofa, slightly uncomfortably. "That's where I _sleep_, asshole."

"I'll change the fucking sheets after," Otabek says, glad that Yuri hasn't asked for an explanation. He wouldn't be able to put it to words how much he longs to be inside Yuri, inside his childhood bedroom, to have Yuri _let_ him.

"No," Yuri says, pushing back. "No, we're not gonna fuck right now. I'm not-" He shoves Otabek's arms away and withdraws to the other end of the green sofa. His position is defensive, knees up, glaring from behind them.

Otabek nods, curbing his disappointment and desire. He rubs his face, runs his hands through his hair, and then pulls the strands of pearls loose around his neck. They'd been digging in, but he doesn't want the reminder or the stimulation now.

"We did on your birthday," Otabek says, like the heel he is.

"That was 'cause I wanted to hurt you!" Yuri hisses.

Otabek believes that, but he doesn't believe it's all of it. He meets Yuri's wide—frightened—eyes and drops his gaze first, almost immediately. "Lose the furniture and the dishes," he mutters. "And the books. Anything that's heavy to carry or has no sentimental value. There's no point in dragging it all with you. Trust me, I'm the expert on leaving."


	14. Chapter 14

Otabek has two drinks in hand, but Yuri has disappeared. The only one standing by the little table at the club is Georgi, ear glued to his phone like it'd been all evening.

"Anushka, please, listen to me," he pleads for the thousandth time since Otabek had met Yuri's new friends from the Bolshoi. "There are no girls at this club!"

It's a more astute perception than Otabek's been capable of all day since the sofa. It had been a small relief when Yuri had told him there'd be a club in his near future. Otabek puts the drinks down on the table and leans on it, scanning the dancing crowd to find Yuri. The strobing lights and heaving crowd don't make it easy.

"She hung up," Georgi yells sorrowfully at Otabek's elbow. It's the fifth time she's done it. "I only agreed to come because Yurik told me there'd be no girls. Anushka is so jealous."

Otabek lifts his thumb in Georgi's direction to signal he's heard, but doesn't care. Yuri and Kenji, the other friend he'd brought along, appear on the edge of the dancers, circling each other. Kenji is tiny compared to Yuri, and laughs with unveiled glee, while Yuri only grins as they dance. For someone who dances so perfectly on the stage, Yuri likes to dance very badly when not on stage. _Stress relief_, Otabek thinks. _And I'm the stress_.

Kenji's top is completely covered in sequins and it flashes every time the lights move. In comparison, Yuri's sleeveless black one is positively tame, but it also tells Otabek he's never seen Yuri in all black, and his pale skin and hair make such a mouthwatering contrast. Yuri's throat sparkles with sweat under the lights.

"Thanks!" Georgi nudges him and downs the other drink, and Otabek finds himself not caring. His phone lights up on the table and picks it up immediately. "Anushka! What? It's a boys' night out! I don't know! Do you want me to come over right now? I will!"

It's a nice club. Loud. Full. Makes Otabek regret turning down JJ's offer to go back. It'd been a singular pleasure to play his mixes and watch Yuri dance—badly—to them. But even before that. He pushes the other drink at Georgi, too, and goes to get water instead. That, at least, is rewarded with a grin from Yuri when he returns from the dancefloor with Kenji. They demolish the bottle of water between them, and Otabek watches.

"Come," Yuri mouths at him over the music, crooking his finger. "Dance."

Otabek shakes his head, but goes anyway. Otabek had loved ballet for its rhythm, and then breaking that rhythm. Yuri does the same, unfollowing rules when convenient. It's been two years since they danced together. Otabek keeps Yuri in the circle of his arms, enjoying every bit of damp skin, every brush of his hair or hands, the breath on Otabek's face, the touch of lips to his ear, the smell of bodies and of Yuri's orange-scented sweat.

Yuri's skin is salty to taste when he turns, grinding his backside to Otabek's front. Otabek licks one shoulder, the long neck, the tiger tattoo behind his ear, and drowns.

#

Cold seems to touch Yuri only in very specific circumstances. Returning from a club where he'd danced himself wet with only a thin tank top under an open hoodie seems to be one of those times when the temperature is of secondary concern. He's also quiet, maybe even tired, and Otabek doesn't feel like disturbing him.

The noise of the city is much less pleasant, but also much less intrusive than the club's soundscape. The remnants of that music are still alive in the base of Otabek's skull. It's just past midnight, so only late for people like Yuri who have to get up early for work, but when they make it to the building Yuri digs something from his pocket and goes to drop it around the trees and bushes.

Otabek watches. "You have cat treats in your pocket all the time?"

"No." Yuri shrugs and refuses to elaborate. He walks up onto one of the benches, sitting on the back of it, with his feet on the seat. Otabek follows and sits properly, just next to Yuri's knees. He likes that perspective, looking up at Yuri. Yuri leans one elbow on his knee and places his chin in his palm, his other arm idle until Otabek leans on his thigh, testing the boundaries. After a scoff Yuri puts his fingers in Otabek's hair and starts twisting the strands around and around.

Otabek closes his eyes, keeping his hands in his lap and his breathing as even as possible. His leather jacket or his jeans don't do much to cover the fact that his automatic reaction to the situation is to get hard. He had been on that edge all day: in the morning with Yuri on top of him on the sofa, during the day with Yuri on top of him on the sofa, in the club where he would've been more than happy to fuck Yuri in the non-privacy of the toilets.

Otabek is 24 and this pathetic.

He shivers with cold and the gratifying sting and tug of his hair. He doesn't suggest going inside because Yuri hasn't indicated in any way that he wants to do that yet. This ground is more neutral. Yuri doesn't trust him. It's fine. This is already more forgiveness than he deserves.

Otabek presses his cheek against the rough denim covering Yuri's thigh and stares up at him. He presses his palms down just a little more against his hard-on. Yuri strokes his fingers along the shaved side of Otabek's head, and the outer edge of his ear. Otabek closes his eyes and tenses his thighs against his hands.

He nearly topples over when Yuri leaps off the bench, jetéing with incredible hang time towards the bush where he'd left the food. "Fuck! There!"

Otabek gets to his feet stiffly.

"I saw them! Shit!" Yuri curses and stomps around the bushes several times. "Ugh, they're gone."

Otabek just stands there, but there's no complaint he could voice. Yuri's petted him to oblivion, just shy of coming into his pants thanks to his surreptitious rocking against his thighs and hands. It's pitiful, but at least he has the chance to be that pitiful, ready to go to pieces again if Yuri tells him to.

Yuri heads back inside. He takes the steps effortlessly three at a time and then waits by his door for Otabek to catch up. The door's open and Yuri is leaning against the doorframe, legs crossed at the ankle and idly biting at a fingernail. Half of him has a faint red outline and the other half is shadows in the dark corridor.

Otabek thinks his heart might stop with the associations that pose brings, having seen Yuri at his door above the club in London like that enough times. He'd sped up the stairs there, too, then waited because Otabek had the keys. Here he doesn't have to wait. But he's waiting and it's like a promise.

Otabek follows him in, and as soon as his boots are off, Yuri takes him by the front of his leather jacket and pulls him right past the sitting room and into his bedroom. There's no fairy lights, but a tiny new nightlight that glows a starry turquoise. Yuri tosses his hoodie away and peels off his tank top, with it's sugared leopard print, then looks at Otabek, eyes in the shadow of his hair, and pushes his glittery jeans down his hips.

Otabek doesn't believe it's an invitation until Yuri looks at him through his lashes, painted green and blue by the light, and gestures impatiently, _fucking move it_ said under his breath. The ghost of music past still beats in Otabek's head, bringing him two years back, to a flat that never went quiet, and times they fucked to that everpresent beat. He shrugs off his jacket and gets out of his shirt, and then Yuri is there, helping him undo his jeans.

It's so easy. Yuri says _Beka_ and kisses him. Otabek kicks his jeans off his legs and picks Yuri up. He's never had trouble doing that, even with Yuri being dense with muscle and taller than him. And Yuri doesn't let go of him, pulling him down on the bed, fingers scrabbling against the pearls. He starts to remove them and Otabek pauses, placing his hand over the string.

"Really?" Yuri says.

"Mine," Otabek says.

Yuri narrows his eyes, generous and beguiling. "I'll give you another one."

Otabek nods and lets Yuri pull the black strands from around his neck. He feels bereft, but also like he's floating when Yuri drops the necklace on the floor with a clatter. He forgets it as soon as Yuri grabs the top of his hair and pulls on that, forcing Otabek to give way to Yuri rolling on top of him. It's tricky on the narrow bed.

"After I left," Otabek says in to the space between their mouths, "I often dreamed of you doing just that, and then strangling me with your thighs."

Yuri convulses with amusement and something darker. "Funny, I dreamed of the same thing." He brushes his knuckles against Otabek's jaw. "Killing you."

"That was one my favourite parts of those dreams," Otabek admits, walking his fingers along Yuri's spine. "The dying."

Yuri sits up, straddling Otabek's hips. "Do you just want me to sit on your face?"

"Oh yeah," Otabek breathes, but he sits up, too, to keep his arms around Yuri, to look up at him, to inhale him, to press him down against his erection, to mouth at his neck.

But Yuri pushes at his right shoulder, grasping his upper arm and twisting it. "This isn't a zipper," he sneers, scraping against the pattern around the little tiger. It covers Otabek's arm down to his elbow, starting just above his nipple and arching upwards and over to touch his shoulderblade on his back.

"No," Otabek says, watching Yuri's face. "It's the ripple effect."

Yuri covers the tiger on Otabek's chest with his thumb, but doesn't try to dig it out this time. "Huh." His face is almost lax, almost expressionless, or there is an emotion that even he can't express.

"Don't like it?" Otabek asks. It had been there in March, too, but maybe Yuri hadn't noticed it. The memory of that encounter makes Otabek collect Yuri closer, if possible, and bury his face into Yuri's neck.

"Just thinking how much I hate you," Yuri mutters. His hand comes up the back of Otabek's head and grasps onto his hair to pull his head back. "Regretting all my choices." He needs only to lick at Otabek's lips to have him part them, to let Yuri kiss him into submission.

Otabek grows breathless and desperate with the kiss, with the layers of underwear still separating them. He runs his hands along Yuri's endless neck and back and rocks him slowly. When Yuri finally pushes him away and rolls back, it's only to get his underwear off, and Otabek finds he can admire the view while getting naked as well.

"Yura," he grunts. "You're... sublime."

Yuri stops, with laughter in his face. "Nice pause, asshole."

"You won't let me call you beautiful."

At that Yuri wrinkles his nose and presses Otabek back down on the narrow bed, sitting on him again, and Otabek's hands curl around the backs of Yuri's thighs. "Don't go there again. Beautiful's bullshit," he confides, touching the side of Otabek's face, dragging through the stubble.

"But you are-"

"_Sublime_," he snorts and reaches past Otabek's head with his other hand, dragging out a row of condoms and pump bottle of lubricant. Otabek grabs his arm.

"Who's PTS?" Under the _НРП_ for Yuri's grandfather is a new row, _ПТС_.

"Puma Tiger Scorpion," Yuri says and the words rattle past Otabek without sparking any recognition. "Potya!" Yuri clarifies.

"Your cat," Otabek realises.

"Yeah. _My cat_," Yuri snaps and slaps the condoms over Otabek's face. "You wanna talk about my cat or fuck?" he asks darkly, sitting directly on Otabek's dick prove his point. He plants the lube bottle on Otabek's chest and gives it a pump, spilling some of its slippy contents down the side and onto Otabek.

Otabek rips one condom packet apart from the rest. "Not at the same time," he mutters, pushing his hips up a little. Yuri's grin returns in the strange graphic quality that the nightlight creates with deep shadows and the faint turquoise glow. He hauls Otabek up by his shoulders and kisses him.

Yuri fills Otabek's palm with a helpful but overflowing amount of lube. "Be gentle," he mocks. "It's been a while."

Otabek counts back to the start of March. "About two and a half months?"

"Fuck you. Yeah." Yuri kisses him again, shifting forwards on his knees so Otabek's hand fits under him. It's as clear an invitation as one is going to get, so Otabek presses his coated fingers against Yuri's asshole, cock twitching at the memory and thought of it happening again, and the wetly enthusiastic way Yuri sucks on his tongue and encourages him with impatient hums of _do it _and _fucking hurry_.

With his other arm supporting Yuri around his lower back, Otabek finds it easy enough to slide two fingers into Yuri, and he tries to be gentle, which flies out the window when Yuri grunts and sits back onto Otabek's fingers. "Hurry up, Beka," he mutters, digging eager nails into Otabek's shoulders. "I wanna- I wanna- _Fuck._"

Otabek scissors his fingers slowly, then crooks them towards himself and down like a come hither, gauging from the breathier gasps and the sudden burst of warm wetness between them that he's hit the right spot, and hit it well. Yuri goes rigid and shakes, thighs locking up like beams of steel, rocking into both Otabek's stomach and his fingers.

"Mmnhngf." Yuri's pressed his face into Otabek's neck, muffling his voice there, and Otabek can hardly tell the lack of music from the insistent beat of blood in his ears. He's hanging onto his composure by a thread, having never brought Yuri off this easy, and not able to account for what he's done differently, except maybe that Yuri's been waiting and wanting for it to happen. _How long?_

"Yura," Otabek murmurs, arms straining around Yuri, cock straining against the light pressure and the cooling splash of cum. Yuri goes lax and Otabek scoops all four fingers into a cone and slip them inside Yuri, making him gasp, but not tense up too much. "Yura," Otabek repeats with urgency.

"Yeah, yeah," Yuri says, pulling back and fishing out the condom from the sheets. His eyes are drooping and his lips are soft. He brushes them against Otabek's mouth and reaches down between them to roll the condom on Otabek. And the fact they're in Otabek's size, and not his, makes Otabek squirm restlessly, grasping Yuri's hips with both hands, even the slippery one.

"I hope you're not gonna come right away," Yuri continues, squeezing Otabek's cock, with absolutely no embarrassment or acknowledgement of the fact he'd just done so basically right away.

Otabek shrugs, gritting his teeth. He makes no promises.

"Beka," Yuri sighs, lifting himself on his knees, and lines up with Otabek before pushing down slowly. He bites his lip, then his mouth falls open and he pants, but doesn't close his eyes. Otabek can never look away.

Otabek is shaking by the time he bottoms out on Yuri, and from the way Yuri's mouth twists he can tell the slowness is purposeful. "Yura," he reproaches, kneading the flesh of Yuri's buttocks with his hands to distract himself from the need to move.

"How close are you?" Yuri asks, shifting his weight onto his knees again, rising off Otabek, and then rocking back again.

"Depends on you," Otabek croaks, which makes Yuri laugh, a hoarse little chuckle, which is still greater than gold to Otabek. He licks into the cleft of Otabek's lips and starts riding him faster.

"Don't," he says every time he slams himself down. "Don't come."

And Otabek clings barely to his sanity, and his ability to hold back. "Please," he breathes, not even realising he's said it until Yuri mouths _no_ and twists one hand into Otabek's hair, painfully enough to distract him for one second.

He repeats his _please_ what feels like a hundred times, losing sense of time, living for the friction, for the unforgettable person on top of him, the licks and bites on his neck, the mouth-wetting memory of repaying the favour, the sting on his scalp, the promise of a pearl necklace of any kind.

He comes between one please and the next, balls contracting hard, holding Yuri down, and filling the condom. Yuri sits there for a moment, then slides off, reaching down to hold the condom in place. He pushes Otabek down on the bed and straddles his chest, locking his arms down with his thighs. His face is twisted with pleasure and amusement and he strokes himself right in front of Otabek's face. Otabek grasps onto as best as he can and watches, mouth open in expectation and breathlessness.

Yuri doesn't hold himself back from orgasming and does so spectacularly all over Otabek's face and upper chest, pink tongue sticking against his teeth and eyes rolling back briefly. Otabek aftershocks from the combination of that and the hot splatters of cum on his skin and tongue. He swears he can hear the beat of dance music, and the traffic of London.

Yuri slides down, but not off because there's nowhere else to go on the bed. He gleams with new sweat, made ethereal by the light. Otabek wraps his freed arms around him. "Can I have a key?" he whispers on a dry throat.

Yuri closes his eyes. "You are the worst at pillow talk," he says.

"Just for tomorrow." Otabek doesn't want to close his eyes so he doesn't miss anything.

"Ugh," Yuri opines, but also doesn't say no. He shifts, already uncomfortable with the congealing mess they've created, but Otabek holds him down.

"I can cook you something for when you get back," he promises.

"Not once did I see you cook anything but really shitty tea before," Yuri mutters, tensing further. Their bodies don't quite slide together, but stick. The used condom is there somewhere.

"I'll follow a YouTube tutorial," Otabek says, watching and feeling Yuri's increasingly agitated attempts at getting away. He just wants to sleep. _D__on't make promises._

Yuri squirms out of Otabek's grasp. "Shower, asshole," he both commands and demands, not letting go of Otabek's hand. Otabek sits up and staggers to his feet. The condom drops to the floor and Yuri gags, swooping it up, gags again and shoves it into Otabek's hand, leaking.

"You swallow," Otabek says, handling the situation with the grace of someone who's dead on his feet and can't be bothered, except by the thought of bending Yuri over in the bathtub.

"It's different!" Yuri yells, already in the corridor, flooding Otabek's eyes when he turns on the bathroom light.

Otabek shuffles into the tiny bathroom, and finds Yuri in the tub. There isn't really a standing shower, but a showerhead attached to the faucet in the tub. Otabek dumps the condom into the bin and catches his reflection in the mirror, surprised to see the drips still caught on his skin and in his stubble, and feels his cock start filling again. He steps into the tub and doesn't voice any complaints when Yuri aims the showerhead at his face, holding onto the wall for support.

Only when Yuri takes the water to rinse himself off, and Otabek is left there to shiver in the lack of warmth, does he speak again. "Why?" he says. "Why are you forgiving me?"

Yuri shoves the showerhead into his hands and steps out, grabbing a towel. "'Cause if I didn't, I'd have nothing," he says. "I hate you, but I hated you not being here even more."

Otabek stands there speechlessly, letting the lukewarm water sluice down his chest uselessly. Yuri towels off briskly.

"So if my mother came back tomorrow, I'd forgive her, too, 'cause then I'd have a _mother_."

It's staggering, and painful, meaning that Yuri accepts being hurt by those he trusts because the alternative is not to have those people at all. Otabek wants to fall apart and go down the drain with the water, like all sewage should do. Instead he is startled from his stare when Yuri turns off the water and throws the damp towel at him.

"You said you'd change the sheets," he reminds Otabek on his way out.

Otabek's delayed reaction is to stick his thumb up. He pats himself dry, hangs up the towel, turns off the bathroom light and follows Yuri back into the bedroom, where Yuri has already stripped the bed. He dumps fresh linens into Otabek's arms and leaves the room again. It's not the least romantic post-coital event that's happened between them, but it's up there.

When the new sheets are on, Otabek finds Yuri in the doorway, snacking on a banana. "Can I sleep with you?" Otabek asks. _Don't assume._ Yuri shrugs and dives into the bed, and he leaves what space he can for Otabek to follow and spoon him. There's hardly any other way to fit.

Otabek kisses the back of Yuri's neck, his shoulders, the friendly tiger behind his ear, anything he can reach while wrapping his arms around him. The fresh sheets are nice, the slightly salty taste of Yuri's skin fills his mouth, and the spicy orangey scent of his hair fills his nose. He falls into a pleasant twilight of holding a warm body, not only tired but also sleepy, with vague aroused undertones, but nothing so urgent that it would stop him from falling asleep.

#

Otabek hopes the very short nights they have are only because he's there and not something Yuri lives with constantly. Yuri is young, and resilient, and full of energy, but he works very long days in an industry that demands a lot from his body, and he needs sleep. Some of which neither of them has had for the past two nights. At least not in the amount required to keep functioning in the long run.

But it's not going to be the long run, it's only three nights, and on the flipside of it, Otabek is glad Yuri is willing to sacrifice some of his sleep for Otabek. And street cats.

A faint alarm forces them both awake after too few hours, and Yuri moving out of the bed makes their skin rip apart uncomfortably. Yuri makes a face and Otabek sits up to watch him dress. When Yuri has his clothes on, he climbs back on the bed and onto Otabek and kisses him for a while, unhurried, tasting of sleep and banana.

"So are you really gonna cook me something?" Yuri whispers, fingertips warm on Otabek's shoulders.

"Yep," Otabek promises. _Always and anything_.

Yuri kisses him, then grabs his keys from his backpack and separates one key. "You better be here to let me in."

Otabek just kisses him again, the wet little smacks making the most noise in the room until Yuri slips away and disappears into the dawn. Otabek curls back up into the sheets and warms up with the memory of Yuri, so much closer now than it had been.

Otabek dozes in the bed a while longer, the showers while entertaining the idea of jerking off, but decides to leave it. It'll be more fun with Yuri later. The shower and thoughts of Yuri leave him warm both inside and outside. While drying off, Otabek tidies a little in Yuri's bedroom. Mostly he digs around in the clothes, recognising some of them, and pressing many of them to his nose. He collects his pearls and wears them again, gets dressed, and looks through the kitchen.

After watching YouTube tutorials for an hour, Otabek assures his brother everything is fine and to not come pick him up at the airport the next morning. Then he heads out to pick the food items required for lamb besbarmak. It's true he hadn't really cooked anything the whole time he'd spent in London, but coming back home and attempting to establish himself as a functioning adult had forced him to learn some basic skills in the area.

The two kittens are out sunning themselves on a bench when he comes back and he records a brief video of them for Yuri, but doesn't try to approach them. Yuri sends him a wall of emoji hieroglyphs in response. It's a slow day, patterned by waiting, but also a rising sense of expectation, which is for once not filled with dread, only with hope, which is even worse.

Otabek doesn't let even himself think on the subject when he looks down from the sitting room window to the yard, waiting to see Yuri arrive. He does, easily recognising the light, bouncy jog and bright hair even from the 10th floor. He opens the door and waits, leaning on the doorframe, listening to the patter of rapidly approaching steps in the stairwell, and then Yuri appears, only very slightly out of breath. Otabek's face feels odd, looking at him.

Yuri looks lost, then surprised, then curious, and then he's too close, crushing Otabek against the sharp doorjamb, kissing him. Yuri's hands are cold, scrabbling for purchase on the sides of Otabek's head, and Otabek squeezes him close. The echo of a door closing somewhere above them encourages them to take it inside where Yuri sniffs the air.

"Fuck," he says, a tremor in his voice that Otabek has never heard before. "You actually cooked something."

Otabek nods, still dazed from the kiss, not sure what he'd done to earn it.

"So?" Yuri prompts, dropping his shoes and backpack and hoodie in the middle of the floor. "What is it?" He skips into the kitchen to look into the big pot on the stove.

"Besbarmak," Otabek says. He hadn't made the noodles, but he'd spent a long while cutting vegetables and meat into tiny pieces to make it as authentic as he could, and still missing by a mile.

Yuri is already tasting it off the ladle. "I don't know what that is," he says and notices that the table has been set. "You did this, too?"

"Yep," Otabek says. He does know how to set a table, at least.

"Okay," Yuri says, still incredulous and sits at the table. Otabek takes the pot and moves it in front of Yuri.

"It's a traditional dish," he says. "I haven't done it justice, but-"

"Beka," Yuri cuts him off, holding up a hand. "I was expecting leaf water."

Otabek nods again, feeling his cheeks go hot, and serves Yuri two ladles of the stew. It's not even properly displayed like it should be, on a big open platter, but it's enough. He's done something good.

Yuri, starved for affection and food, tells him, in not so many words, that when someone cooks, it means they _care_. He eats probably more than is necessary, and Otabek finds it endearing and flattering and desperate in equal amounts. Afterwards all their kisses taste like onion and Yuri is too full to do much more than take part in half-hearted handjobs. It's still enough. They go to sleep and this time the alarm that wakes them is Otabek's. He's the one who dresses and packs and kisses a sleepy Yuri goodbye.

"No," Yuri says, clinging onto the pearl necklace around Otabek's neck. "I mean," he says, sitting up and fishing out his jeans. "I have something for you." He brings out another strand of pearls, bright electric blue, and pours them into Otabek's palm, a key attached to the string. "Wear these instead."

Otabek closes his fingers around the cool plastic beads. "Yura," he says, then nods and gives Yuri one last kiss. And another, which turns into five more. "I'll text you when I land."

Yuri huffs and covers himself with the sheet. "Okay, asshole. Get the fuck out." His voice is muffled and unhappy, but not angry. It's not a no. Otabek pats the nearest bit of him over the sheet and shuffles out on unwilling feet.

When his boots are on, Yuri appears again, wearing a hastily donned shirt, hair sticking up, and he crosses the corridor in two long steps to throw his arms around Otabek, who catches him reflexively.

"I can't fucking believe you're leaving _again_," Yuri mutters into the shoulder of Otabek's leather jacket. "So much for staying. Fuck you."

"You knew I was-" Otabek starts. _It's not about that._ "I'm not leaving _you_," he says, holding Yuri as tight as he can, breathing into the cloud of his hair.

"You are, actually. Literally," Yuri argues, words shuddering out of his mouth on fast exhales.

"You said three days," Otabek reminds him hopelessly.

"I know what I said!" Yuri growls.

"I'll come back as soon as I can," Otabek promises. He can't stop promising things now. "I'll stay as long as I can. The Bolshoi's closed in August, yeah? I'll stay as long as you'll let me." He does have responsibilities in Almaty. He does have family, in more than one place.

"No roadtrip?" Yuri mumbles. Otabek's heart hurts at the idea.

"Sold my bike," he says.

"So _uncool_," Yuri complains and pulls back. His face is twisted and his body is hard with tension. "Fucking go," he says and shoves at Otabek. "Just go."

Otabek fumbles the door open, still looking at Yuri, a hand still lingering on Yuri's arm, but he has a flight to catch. He's down half a floor when Yuri appears at the top of the stairs.

"Text me!" he says, making the whole stairwell echo and Otabek gives him a thumbs-up until he has to turn into the next section of stairs and can no longer see Yuri.


	15. Epilogue

The year ticks over to August.

Otabek visits Moscow thrice more before that.

On a clear and warm morning, Nurbek picks him up, singing. "_And so I wake in the morning_," he starts when Otabek opens to the door to his air-conditioned Audi.

"_And I step outside?_" Otabek adds to where his little brother turns up the volume of the familiar song.

"_And I take a deep breath and I get real high!_" Nurbek shouts, "_And I scream from the top of my lungs, what's going on!_" He laughs and swerves the car too fast around a corner, with Otabek hanging on.

"Happy today," Otabek remarks after turning the music back down.

"I got scouted!" Nurbek doesn't bother turning his volume down. "Saint-Germain! In the top ten best clubs in Europe! They want a midfielder! And I'm _it!_" He flicks the music back on. "_And I pray, oh my god do I pray!_"

Otabek turns off the sound system altogether, grasping his brother's hand briefly on the gear stick. "Congrats, Nura. You deserve it."

"Thanks, bro." Nurbek's smile is blinding.

Otabek realises something when he turns away from his beaming brother. "You're going to leave me alone here. With them."

Nurbek snorts. "Did I say anything when you went to train in Russia? When you went to study in London?"

"You did..." Otabek mutters.

"I've been the only son for years and years because of you. It's my turn to go."

And there's logic and opportunities which Otabek can't argue with. The mood is a little less when Nurbek parks at the fitness centre, and Otabek is distracted by his phone buzzing.

**Y< im here**

Despite staring at the message for a good five seconds, Otabek doesn't understand it, his mind preoccupied with his brother.

**O> what**

The reply is instant.

**Y< wHaT**  
**Y< im HERE**  
**Y<** 🐈 ✈️  
**Y< come pick me up!!** 😼 😼

Otabek's heart crashes against his ribs. "Fuck!" he says, shoving his phone away with shaky hands and grabbing his gym back. "I need to go."

"Why?" Nurbek leaps out of the car. "Something wrong?"

"No." Otabek tries to remember how to call a cab. "Yura. Yura's here. I have to go get him."

"I, I'd-" Nurbek hesitates, surprised.

"I know, you can't miss practice. It's fine." Otabek looks up and smiles at his brother. "I'm so happy for you, Nura, but I have to go get him."

"I get it," Nurbek says. "Go."

Otabek gives him a quick thumbs-up, already jogging away, typing.

**O> omw**


End file.
